New Beginnings
by lostcowgirl
Summary: The war over - Chester, Doc, Matt & Kitty each travel to Dodge City. It's not easy getting there and for Matt, at least, even after he arrives there's trouble to be faced and a badge to honor.
1. Chapter 1 A Kansas Town Beckons

Although this tale is mostly a young Matt's story, I thought this opening chapter offered an opportunity to flesh out Chester's background and put him in a place to meet first Doc and then Matt. The chapter directly references Season 3's Gun for Chester and Season 15's Stryker.

**Chapter 1 - A Kansas Town Beckons a Texan Who'd Served in the Union Army**

Chester Goode, unlike his brother Magnus, who disappeared somewhere on the prairie well before the war made itself felt in the flatlands of east Texas, wanted to do his part. Living in cotton country, but in a poor farm family that couldn't afford slaves and grew more vegetables than cotton, the young man sought a way to see the wider world beyond nearby Marshall or even the bigger town to the northeast, Texarkana. Despite the growing rumors that war would soon be coming, the 19-year-old sought out the nearest army post and joined up. When the war broke out he thought of deserting to join up with the local Confederate regiment, but somehow his sense of fairness wouldn't allow him to fight to preserve the institution of slavery. He'd met slaves and freemen who were just like him except for the color of their skin. Some, thanks to benevolent masters, even had more education. For Chester formal learning had been squeezed in between the chores that went along with trying to make a living from the land. He could read, write and do basic arithmetic, but little more than that. Even the larger words in newspapers gave the young man born on June 4, 1841 problems.

The army taught the gangling youth to shoot and, because as a farm boy he could blend into the countryside, transferred the private to a unit fighting in Arkansas and Missouri. The young soldier's unit would slip behind enemy lines posing as just what they were – boys fresh off the farm. All they had to do was keep away from the regular Confederate patrols and fire on them, then pretend they knew nothing about the attack if they happened to be spotted somewhere down the road. Just a few months later he was a battle-scarred veteran with a bullet in his right knee. For his trouble he was promoted to Corporal and assigned as an assistant cook to the Mess Sargent for his regiment. The one-time Texas farmer found he liked cooking. It was the best way to assuage his hefty appetite. He even learned a bit about cooking.

Chester was mustered out of the army in Stone County, Missouri almost exactly five years to the day he first joined up if you subtracted a couple of months. He soon drifted into the town of Godell with no idea of what he wanted to do with his life. Despite his war inflicted handicap, the lanky youth was able to secure odd jobs and with his affable personality to start to make friends. However, his innate sense of fair play and common courtesy would sometimes get him into trouble. Such was the case one night as he ate in a café and spotted a man who, in his opinion, was mistreating a girl, although others might have thought differently and not become involved. Instead, he used his army issued pistol in an altercation with Rufus Ledbetter.

Both boys were armed & when challenged Rufus drew his weapon to try to force Chester to back down and leave him to further harass the girl. Instead the Texan with the gimpy leg stood his ground and pulled his own gun. When he heard his adversary pull back the hammer, he fired, killing the self-appointed gift to women and earned the wrath of the slain man's brother Asa. Thinking it best that he move on to where he wasn't known, Chester headed west into Kansas.

By the end of June 1865 he found himself in the new, not yet incorporated town of Dodge City where the City Marshal, appointed a year ago, Josh Stryker, took a liking to the former soldier turned so-so cook and offered him the position of Jailer. For the low pay, actually a portion of the marshal's pay allotted by the town council, of $8 a month, he performed all the janitorial and prisoner-related tasks around the jailhouse, the only brick building in town.

The job wasn't much, but he had a place to sleep on a cot in the jailhouse office, free meals if he cooked them himself while preparing food for the prisoners and a chance to make friends. There were also more than enough places for the affable young man of 24 to lose what little he had on dance hall girls and gambling. When Doc Adams joined the community in time for the town's first official Fourth of July celebration affording him a chance to get all the medicines and tonics he thought he might need, Chester Goode decided he just possibly had found a home. At the very least, Dodge had become a place where he was accepted despite his stiff leg and country ways, if not always respected.


	2. Chapter 2 From Prison to Freedom

I built this chapter on my Gunsmoke prequel story Go West Young Man about a much younger Doc and a teenage Matt's meeting in what was to become Dodge City, my post Series novel Die a Little, Live a Lot and allusions Doc made to his past throughout the series.

**Chapter 2 - From Prison to Freedom**

General Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 brought about more than just the end of the war. Federal troops moving into Richmond, Virginia six days earlier meant the release of the prisoners held at the notorious Confederate prison there, Libby, Dr. Galen Adams, late of the Third Illinois, among them. The first thing the doctor did as soon as he'd filled his belly for the first time in he couldn't remember how long, was locate a telegraph office and wire his sister, Beatrice Hildebrandt and her husband Warren to let them know he was alive and would send his permanent location once he decided upon it.

Doc, as he now liked to be called in deference to the happy time he'd spent before the war in the itinerant frontier community near Fort Dodge, thought about where he might like to settle. There was Baltimore, but the city was too closely aligned with the southern cause for it to be appealing so soon after the South's defeat. Likewise, practicing medicine on the riverboats might not be the most desirable either. He doubted he could be as comfortable on the Tennessee Queen as he'd once been before his tenure in western Kansas. It must not have been as salubrious a sojourn if even then he'd mixed up the name of the city, Memphis, with the state it was in when recalling that boat for his friends.

There was nothing for it. He would head west, after securing some changes of clothing and the latest in medical equipment from his mentor at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, to what he now heard was being called Dodge City in honor of its proximity to Fort Dodge. He told Dr. Eldred Hudkins of his plans, which made the older physician smile and grant his blessings by bestowing free equipment for Doc's medical bag and even a small monetary stake to pay for transportation and lodging along the way to get him started in his practice. Within a week of his release Doc was on a westbound train on his way to resume his frontier life.

The reality was the 41-year-old as of July fifth now much more experienced physician, especially when it came to bullet wounds and diseases of malnutrition brought about by the conditions of war, couldn't reach his destination by train. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad hadn't quite reached Dodge City yet. The closest depot was nearly 100 miles away in Great Bend, but the track between the two Kansas towns was already being laid. He reluctantly transferred to a stagecoach for the two-day journey, which would have taken less than eight hours on a train, even allowing for frequent stops and needing to slow down for expected and unexpected contingencies. The slower stagecoach was more easily beset by road agents, Indians and even weather, but it couldn't be helped if he was to arrive at his chosen destination.

The traveler was spared washed out roads and Indian attack, but he didn't escape being waylaid by a small band of cutthroats just beyond a relay station that was halfway to his final destination. He was forced to give up what money remained from Dr. Hudkins' gift, but was able to convince the outlaws that it would be in their best interest to allow him to keep his medical bag and all it contained. If nothing else, the feisty little man with the mustache could stand his ground when it came to what was really important. Besides, the road agents knew doctors carrying their instruments were a scarce and much needed commodity along this still wild bit of frontier prairie.

Finally, he arrived at the much-changed crossroads in time to witness its first Fourth of July celebration. Still, it was rather pretentious to call the collection of rag-tag wooden buildings and tents arrayed along Front Street and the few cross and parallel streets a city, but that's just what the town's founders and leading citizens claimed in the name they chose, Dodge City. The one brick structure was the jailhouse presided over by City Marshal Josh Stryker and a seemingly rather inept jailer, a tall, skinny fellow with a gimpy right leg by the name of Chester Goode. The general store's clapboard enclosure seemed more substantial than it had been in '55 when he watched an even taller and at the time not quite man named Matt Dillon leave for points south and west. Even as Doc wondered about the youth whose life he'd saved, he noticed the store had a new owner, but the space above the shop was still available to let.

Wilbur Jonas and his wife Ellen had bought the store from the profit they'd made from selling a similar shop in Ohio back in '62 after both their sons were killed at the battle of Shiloh. Little did they know a future US Marshal soon to be headquartered in their town was among those who survived unscathed that western Tennessee battle fought April 6-7, 1862. They were looking forward to the completion of the railway terminus and the anticipated growth of the tiny town it would bring, but were glad to provide rooms for the doctor, even if he arrived short of funds. A professional man could only help the community expand, especially one who was familiar with the challenges of frontier life.

Doc's return after ten years meant the more or less permanent buildings included private homes, a general store, now with his office permanently situated above it, the livery now owned by an older man who found he couldn't remain in Lawrence after Quantrill's bloodbath in '63, Moss Grimack, a hotel named the Dodge House, Delmonico's restaurant, a church and a newly opened bank run by Harry Bodkin. All these businessmen had families. Even many of those who ran the saloons, gambling dens, dance halls and bawdy houses, which ranged from tents with barrel furnishings to structures as finished as the reputable shops, had settled down with their families. Though it was still a bit rough around the edges, the Long Branch, owned by Bill Pence, was now the classiest saloon in town.


	3. Chapter 3 Going Home to Texas

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first 2 chapters, including mommoo & DodgeCityAngel who I couldn't personally thank because they signed in as guests.

It's now Matt's turn to be mustered out of his army unit and return to the profession we all know he chose. There are direct references to Season 1's 20-20, Season 5's Gentleman's Disagreement, Season 8's Old York, Season 14's Exodus 21:22 and Season 18's Kimbro as well as previously posted Die a Little, Live a Lot & Go West Young Man.

**Chapter 3 - Going Home to Texas**

The war was over; so, as soon as he was discharged, the soon to be 25-year-old Sargent Matt Dillon longed to return to the life of a lawman. Somehow he wound up with a unit that found its way to Kentucky from Tennessee where he'd fought the Battle of Shiloh in April of '62, nowhere near where he'd signed up in west Texas. Fact was, his friend Frank Reardon remained with the Texas unit fighting along the border with Mexico while he was transferred, along with a bunch of other expert horsemen to a unit in his native Missouri. He wondered where Frank was and, if he were still alive, if he too planned to continue to make a living bringing law and order to the frontier. It was a long time since he'd met Frank when he first signed on as a deputy to Adam Kimbro in Yuma back in '58 after those bank robbers took him hostage and he lit out for Arizona Territory to get away from the bitter taste left in his mouth when he was taken hostage in that Redwater bank.

Matt stopped off in Louisville on his way back west to see Jeanne Schroeder, a girl he'd shown some interest in while his unit was stationed nearby while the war was still on. Back then it soon became apparent that for both of them friendship rather than romance would prevail, but that didn't mean he didn't welcome the chance to see her again. For certain, neither wanted to prevent the other from seeing different people and he was sure that was the case for her. Jeanne, he learned, was already seeing both Ed Beaudry and a young blacksmith, Bert Wells by the time Matt left with his unit. Although it was over between her and Beaudry by the time he saw her again, if there ever was anything serious on her part, it wasn't the case with the other man. In fact, he could tell she just might be serious about Wells. She talked some about Ed and how he felt more for her than she ever did for him.

The reunion was short-lived, but the friendship now included Bert, who shod his horse in preparation for moving back to the southwest. When he came into the blacksmith's shop to claim his mount, Bert was chatting with a slightly older man and Matt couldn't help but overhear his name mentioned. He thought he'd better talk with the man. Trent Marlow, like Matt, had just been mustered out of the army, but, in Marlow's case, it was as an officer with the rebel army, not as a non-com in the union army. The homeward bound native Texan no longer wanted to be a Deputy US Marshal in the city of his birth, San Antonio. He'd served the Confederate cause and couldn't see himself serving the government that had defeated it. Being a part-time deputy sheriff in Bexar County where his family's ranch was and his girl lived was much more to his taste.

"Bert here tells me you've got some experience as a lawman and know the area around San Antone," he told his taller and younger companion. "Would you be interested in work as a lawman out there? Marshal Carver would be a whole lot happier if I could provide him with my replacement."

"Yeah, I'll ride with you. If this Carver takes to me, it'll save me riding around looking to catch on somewhere as a lawman while I sign on with whoever needs a hired gun to protect their rights. I don't see myself as a gunman."

The 28-year-old Marlow was as good a traveling companion as Matt could have wished. He had a solid respect for the law and for life. They rode slowly yet steadily west, stopping along the way only to camp for the night, replenish supplies and/or eat. However, it didn't mean there wasn't any trouble. There were too many ex-soldiers like them too used to fighting and killing for that to be the case, especially as they entered Missouri and began to turn toward Kansas and the Nations just to the south before they even reached Texas.

Still, despite altercations along the way, the two young men managed to arrive in San Antonio by the mid-May. Once they'd seen to their horses, Trent lost no time in finding Matt a place to stow his gear before shepherding him to the office of Senior Deputy US Marshal, Troy Carver. They had to wait because William C. Young had ridden in from Austin to confer with his chief deputy.

The two former soldiers took seats while they waited for the conversation to end. It seemed Young expected to leave the Marshals Service within a year and thought Carver might make a good replacement. However, he thought even if Carver didn't want the promotion, due to the side Marlow, who Carver indicated was one of his deputies, had taken, it might be wise to find a replacement for him. That's when Young noticed the tall, young man sitting with Marlow.

"Who might you be? Are you one of my deputy's men?" Young asked.

"No, sir. The name's Matt Dillon. Trent thought I might be able to catch on in his place."

Soon Matt outlined his experience as a lawman since Adam Kimbro first took a chance on him, ending at the chance meeting with Marlow after being mustered out of the Union Army. He waited for a reaction. It came from both the US Marshal for the Western District and his chief deputy. Finally Carver spoke, after a nod from his superior.

"Son, if Kimbro vouches for you, I'd say you have a job. Still, with Trent leaving to marry that gal of his, I'm still one deputy short. The war took its toll on able-bodied young men who know their way around a six-gun and can use their fists. You know how to fight?"

"I've traded punches in my time. I also learned to box in the army."

Much to Matt's delight, two days later, after his new boss received a wire from Kimbro, now in the Dakotas, he was hired. The second deputy sworn in at the same time was a local lad who'd been too young to join the fighting when it started even if his mother had allowed it, was now just barely old enough to serve as a deputy having just turned 21 two days ago and scared by the job and finally defying his domineering mother. Also on hand, much to Matt's surprise was none other than his old pal, Frank Reardon. Civilian life was looking good even though Frank chose not to accept a position, choosing to be his own boss as town sheriff in Hondo. Instead, the third deputy was a not so bright man of 30 who was desperate for any job that was steadier than signing on to one side or the other in a range war. Matt was the only one who looked favorably on the chance he'd been given. He wasn't just a deputy marshal or even a small-town sheriff, like Frank; he was Deputy to a Senior Deputy US Marshal with the approval of a full US Marshal.

The small-town farm boy who learned to be a cowboy, and who like the older Dirk Beaufort, hired out where his scruples and pocket said his gun was needed before and after he turned lawman, then soldier for the duration of the war, felt he was firmly on the path to advancement in a worthy if chancy profession. Remembering what Adam Kimbro had taught him, he felt it was a way to do some good in the world until he found a girl to marry and settle down with. By then, he hoped he'd have saved enough to buy a small ranch to raise a family like the one he had before he was orphaned.


	4. Chapter 4 Settling In

This chapter contains direct references to Season 1's 20:20, Season 18's Kimbro and perhaps indirect references to my posted novel Die a Little, Live a Lot and prequel Go West Young Man.

**Chapter 4 – Settling In Leads to a Chance to Move Upward**

Matt applied himself to learning all that Troy Carver could teach him, just as he had previously done with Adam Kimbro. Carver, for his part, was impressed by the young man's natural leadership ability, which was unaccompanied by the bravado that usually went hand-in-hand with the self-confidence needed to be accepted as a leader in one of his tender years. He also was struck by how good Deputy Dillon was at handling tense situations. He seemed to have a natural instinct to know just when gunplay was necessary, but wasn't afraid to take chances when the end results dictated using his peacemaker was the best way to handle things. For certain, the young man was incredibly fast. Not many in Carver's experience were faster or steadier.

By late July Matt Dillon had established himself as the best deputy Carver ever had. He again contacted Kimbro, who was up in Deadwood by this time for his opinion on his tall assistant's progress and further potential. When the highly acclaimed lawman raved about the young deputy's ability to handle anything thrown his way, even when left to his own devices, the Senior Deputy US Marshal wrote his boss Bill Young in Austin to learn if there might be an opening for a senior deputy, regional deputy or even a full marshal coming soon. He included both his and Kimbro's recommendation that the young man be promoted as soon as an opportunity arose.

The first big test for two of Carver's three new deputies came when the local branch of the First National Bank of Texas was robbed simultaneously with the Wells Fargo office. The marshal sent Matt to handle the freight and stage line robbery, while he took young Fred Merkel with him. Merkel panicked when the bank robbers returned fire so that all but one of them got away. Of course the one who was caught and wounded by the marshal didn't have the money. The only good thing was that Merkel wasn't seriously wounded.

Meanwhile, Matt took charge by physically holding back Dirk Beaufort, who had joined him from a nearby café, when he wanted to charge headlong into the midst of the holdup. He then instructed the slightly older lad to move around to the back of the building to check the alleyway between the bank and freight office depot for the lookout standing by the gang's horses. Beaufort's premature shot at the youth untying the reins, which ignored the fact that two of the three who robbed the bank were within ten yards of those horses, almost led to disaster. The outlaws mounted and were away before Beaufort could get off another shot, but not before they wounded him just before Marshal Carver came around the corner after them, a second too slow for his shots to effect the getaway.

Matt, however, used the distraction to his advantage. He placed himself, as soon as Beaufort was out of sight, just where the two freight company robbers would emerge. He knocked the lead man on the head with his Colt as the man emerged from the doorway, ready to turn his attention to the other man.

The second robber, despite having his pistol in one hand and the second money satchel in the other, was off-balance when he nearly tripped over his fallen partner and so obeyed Matt's order to drop his weapon and raise his hands. An addled and straggling Beaufort and Merkel joined Matt as their boss also approached. Carver didn't need to be told what his tall deputy had done to salvage at least part of the day, although Beaufort grumbled about it being all luck on Matt's part. Taking over, the marshal headquartered in San Antonio sent his grumbling oldest and youngest deputies down the main street to the jail with the unwounded prisoner, while he and Matt helped the wounded bank robber and awakening freight company robber to their feet so they too could be locked up in a cell. Matt, with Carver's blessing, carried the rescued money over his left shoulder to be deposited in the jailhouse safe until the men came up for trial.

As July merged into August, Marshal Carver wished he could pawn off two of his deputies on the elected County Sheriff and appointed City Marshal, but they had their own problems with their underlings dealing with drunks, property stolen by hired hands and other misdemeanors purely local felonies that formed the backbone of local law enforcement. Crimes that crossed into other jurisdictions, in state or not, were left to Carver and his supposedly more talented deputies unless the Texas Rangers became involved in an intrastate felony dispute. That's why the bank/freight office depot robberies fell to him. He didn't feel he could leave either Beaufort or Merkel in charge, but could designate Dillon as the lead in chasing down the remainder of the gang and the bank money, possibly into Indian Territory, if they managed to travel that far north. However, Carver thought they'd most probably head for the hills and could be caught before the Rangers even got wind of it.

Even as a boy, Matt had ventured into The Nations with his father on hunting trips. He was encouraged to learn the tribal customs and like his father make friends with many of the individual Indians he met, learning their language along with their culture as he did so. He never dropped this habit even after he set out on his own as a young orphan & continued to make friends among the tribes, particularly the Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa. They in turn taught him how to read a trail and survive by his wits on the prairie and in the badlands. Matt eagerly accepted the chance to track the robbers before the trail was lost even if he had to deal with two, in his mind, incompetents.

The three young men followed the trail Matt found at a leisurely pace, giving him ample time to get off his buckskin to check the trail more closely. They continued until that time between sunset and the rising of the full moon when everything grayed out, but not enough so that he couldn't find a likely place to camp.

"Dillon, why are we stopping now? We need to push on to find them," Beaufort opined.

"Won't they see us here," Merkel added. "Besides, isn't this too close to the water? I don't want snakes crawling into my blankets."

Beaufort took up the chant from Merkel whining, "What makes you the expert? Besides, who put you in charge? It should be me, I'm the oldest."

"Carver put me in charge back in town. I'd go on alone, but I wouldn't want to be responsible for you two getting lost on your way home."

Since neither Beaufort nor Merkel knew how to follow a trail or even to find their way back to town, they reluctantly acceded to Matt's authority. Plus, Merkel was less afraid after Matt explained the reasons for being near the water and that the outlaws were half a day's ride ahead of them with no idea they were being followed. As to the snakes and other vermin, their cook fire would keep them away.

Matt led his small posse northeastward into the Texas hill country along the Guadalupe River following the robbers' trail. They stopped in New Braunfels to obtain supplies, learn if the men they were after had stopped in the town, which they had that morning when they held up the local bank and wounded the sheriff, and to wire Carver in San Antonio about their progress. The trail turned west from there, but kept to the river. Despite the slow pace Matt set to spare the horses and so they wouldn't lose the trail, they were closing in on their quarry.

The three deputy marshals set out of town along the river on fresh mounts, leaving their tired horses at the livery. The relatively fresh trail was easy to follow once they caught up with the posse led by the New Braunfels deputy. The local men were eager to turn for home and leave the capture of the desperados to the San Antonio lawmen, but promised to be available for their trial in San Antonio.

By nightfall Matt called for silence when he spotted smoke rising ahead. They dismounted and walked their horses under the shelter of the trees along a bluff above the riverbank toward the camp. It belonged to the men they sought. Convinced the New Braunfels posse would turn back after a few miles, the three men hadn't even bothered to post a sentry. Matt instructed his companions to wait until the men in the camp went to sleep before they snuck down into it. He motioned for Merkel to lead their horses back up the bluff to where their own horses were hidden and wait. As soon as Merkel was on his way back up the trail, he and Beaufort closed in on the sleeping men. The outlaws' gun belts with their pistols were hung within easy reach on the horns of the saddles that served as their pillows while their rifles were leaning against their saddlebags by their feet, closer to the campfire. The two lawmen quietly gathered up the rifles. Matt stuck one under his left arm and one in his left hand while he drew his Colt with his right hand.

That taken care of, Matt shouted, "Get up! You're under arrest!"

The three men jumped up, reaching for their pistols as they did so. That's when Beaufort drew his peacemaker and moved toward the men to gather up their gun belts. Always alert, he spotted the one closest to Beaufort turning toward his holstered six-gun. He shot, killing the man just as his hand reached the butt of the gun. The shot and the man falling caused Beaufort to focus his attention on the two remaining prisoners.

The remaining two men gave the deputies no trouble after that. They readily submitted to the cuffs after they'd toted their saddles up to the spot on the bluff where their horses now stood. Beaufort carried the saddlebags with the money while Merkel carried the remaining saddle and Matt kept watch over the prisoners. They exchanged the borrowed horses for their own when they returned to New Braunfels the following afternoon and remained overnight in town, temporarily securing their prisoners in the local jail and the money in the sheriff's safe.

Trouble arrived the first night out through the hill country on the way home. Beaufort tried to get the money satchels away from Matt while he was supposedly standing watch. Experience both during and before the war had taught the young man to be alert even in sleep. The least sound or movement would awaken him. He pointed his six-gun at Beaufort as he sat up.

"Just what were you planning?"

"Nothin', Matt. Just testin' to see if the prisoners could get loose and steal the money back from us. Speakin' of which, what's stoppin' us from leavin' them with the kid & hightailin' it out of here with the saddlebags? We'd be pretty well set with all that's in them, maybe in a place like Dodge City or the Dakotas where it's still wide open and nobody knows us."

"If that's your plan, hand me your gun, butt first. Our sworn duty is to return this money along with the prisoners, not to steal it for ourselves."

"I don't plan on bein' your prisoner and rot in a cell before and after my trial. I escaped prison durin' the war and I plan on avoidin' it now. Aside from that honest streak of yours, you could be a right handy fella to have around," he retorted as he drew his gun to fire it at Matt.

Matt Dillon was faster and Dirk Beaufort was lying dead, the sound of the exchange of gunfire waking the rest of the camp. Matt ordered the two prisoners to bury the now former deputy marshal as best they could. Once that task was completed they ate an early quick breakfast of coffee and fatback and headed on toward home. Two days later they were back in San Antonio. The prisoners were secured in a cell next to the one that held their partners allowing Matt and Fred to write their matching reports for Carver and the incoming federal judge.


	5. Chapter 5 Does Dodge Need Something More

This chapter directly references Season 4 Matt for Murder, Season 15 Stryker, Season 19 A Game of Death…An Act of Love Parts 1 & 2 and Chester's problems with women and copious appetite throughout the series. For Chester's life after leaving Dodge City you might want to read my Chester's Wedding.

**Chapter 5 – Does Dodge Need Something More?**

Chester Goode was settling in as the jailer. City Marshal Josh Stryker seemed satisfied with how he "reded up" the jailhouse, fed the prisoners and kept the coffee coming. Even though he didn't carry a pistol after the incident in Stone County, he wouldn't have minded if the marshal would on occasion ask him to come along when he made an arrest. Instead, when he felt the need, Stryker tended to ask the town leaders to authorize payment to a temporary deputy to help watch over the town.

His duties being light, Chester often had time on his hands. He'd spend it playing pool, socializing in what had become his favorite saloon the Long Branch and when he was less flush or a poker game was available for him to sit in on at a price he could afford, the less reputable Lady Gay. There was also eating. He didn't care who provided the meal, but it was somehow better if he didn't have to pay for it, especially if a pretty girl cooked it. Of course such gastric delights often led to stomach pains and a visit to the town doctor, now that Dodge had one.

As July moved into the hot, dry weather of August in western Kansas, Doc Adams saw more of the lanky jailer. He marveled at how Chester had adapted to the constraints of his war injury so well that he did just about everything nearly as rapidly as a man without a stiff right leg. The young man's hopping gait, as he moved about the town, barely slowed him at all. There seemed to be no task he wouldn't at least try to do well if asked. The trouble was he often tried too hard and would end up causing unintentional damage. Despite all his troubles, he had an innocence about him that betrayed his isolated farm childhood.

Despite Chester's lack of formal education, Doc found he was eager to learn. The lad wasn't really slow, just too often superficial in his thinking. Although he teased the younger man, still a boy really in many ways, the physician secretly enjoyed his company and was glad of the chance, whenever it came, to go fishing with him along the Arkansas River on the outskirts of town. As a result of his visits to the good doctor for whatever tonic he'd heard would help and fishing jaunts in each other's company, the two men became friends. Doc knew Chester's secret ambitions and his frustrations, especially when it came to finding a steady girl even if he didn't earn enough to marry.

It wasn't just Chester's friendship Doc gained in the short time since his return to Dodge. He also became acquainted with all of the growing town's leading citizens. After all, he was the only doctor within at least a hundred miles. They would often talk about town problems with him while he treated whatever ailed them. In short order, he was asked to join the town council, a group consisting of elected officials and the leading businessmen. Doc offered his opinions and he was listened to when he suggested the most beneficial thing they could do for the town would be to increase law enforcement.

The one thing everyone on the council agreed upon was the fact the growing town was still mostly lawless. It wasn't that Stryker wasn't effective. He did as much as a man in his early-40s with a wife and five-year-old daughter could be expected to do. They needed a younger man, one who was good with a gun, yet without the attitude of the professional gunman and with broad experience like a US Marshal, or at least a Deputy US Marshal. The mayor, the owner of the feed and grain and especially a third man, the man instrumental in converting the collection of buildings into a real town, Bear Sanderson, took the stage to Topeka to confer with the governor and any available national politicians. They wanted to give the impression their community presented an aura of strong law enforcement before the railroad was completed and the town officially incorporated.

As it happened, due to his involvement with some who had ties to the defeated rebels,

Washington felt the current US Marshal in Kansas needed to be replaced. They were willing to try any man who had at least some experience in the Marshals Service, had served honorably in the Union cause and was willing to start wherever the Kansas authorities thought would be most prudent. They could suggest several men who fit the description, although they had no idea how many of them would be willing to relocate in western Kansas. However, they also wanted the man to pass several tests, as did the Dodge City Town Council. The Washington bureaucrats and the local leaders were in full agreement that the times called for the new US Marshal for Kansas' first assignment to be in the wide-open town. In time, they thought, he could appoint a deputy to serve western Kansas and choose to locate permanently in a larger, more civilized community in the eastern portion of the state.

Many candidates were considered. These included the Earp brothers, Bill Hickock and an up and coming young deputy marshal, Matt Dillon, among others. Some were thought experienced and capable enough yet possibly too old. Of the younger candidates, it was thought it best they prove themselves, especially the youngest of them now serving in San Antonio. Still, he came highly recommended by his current superior, that superior's superior and his highly respected mentor as well as his commanding officers during his service during the war. If the youngster were to be appointed he'd have to prove his worth beyond a doubt before that appointment would be viewed as long-term.


	6. Chapter 6 Challenging Opportunity

This chapter is all Matt. It directly references Season 1 20-20, Season 1 Cara, Season 3 Amy's Good Deed, Season 4 Matt for Murder, Season 5 Old Flame, Season 8 The Ditch, Season 10 Hung High Season 18 Sarah and Season 18 Kimbro as well as my own Go West Young Man and Live a Little, Die a Lot.

**Chapter 6 – Challenges Might Mean Opportunity**

Troy Carver was pleased with the older of his two remaining deputies. Matt Dillon seemed capable enough that the Senior Deputy US Marshal felt he could stick with just them for now. Of course a lot of that depended on Fred Merkel living long enough to learn to not only be effective, but to survive for more than the next few months. Matt had the instincts of a lawman and had completed his early training with a couple of the best, Adam Kimbro and Jim Darling. He had the potential in Carver's opinion to be one of the finest marshals ever.

Matt's boss wasn't the only one to see something special in the tall, handsome young man with the curly dark brown hair. The eligible young ladies of San Antonio and the surrounding ranches and farms vied for his attentions as well. For his part, although he'd had relationships with Cara and Dolly Winters, those were when he was still a kid. Even then he felt unsure of how they expected him to act and now with his experience as a cowboy, a hired gun for just causes and in the army he felt it even more. The friendship part came natural if the girl was easy going, but he didn't feel comfortable sharing his emotions with anyone, male or female. He had no problem making friends, even close ones, but even with those closest to him he refused to share his innermost feelings.

Right now those feelings were confused. Matt never had trouble socializing even as far back as when he first set out on his own. His large size and quiet demeanor marked him as the strong, silent type who spoke when he had something to say, which was offset by his ability to really listen to the other person. His parents had taught him to be respectful and to never use his size to force himself on any girl or cause any boy to cower. Never bully or allow others to bully those weaker than themselves was the legacy he'd taken from his deceased parents along with lending a helping hand wherever he could. Therefore, although he wasn't exactly inexperienced, even with dance hall girls, he made sure he wasn't pushing them into something they felt uncomfortable with. It seemed to be appreciated. Yet he couldn't be sure because women were so different from men in their reactions to simple actions or words.

If San Antonio was to be his home, at least for now, he needed to find some way to sort through the girls being pushed upon him by conniving mothers and those girls who openly flirted with him. Most were too shallow for his taste or too willing to be what they thought he wanted them to be. Even though he found her a bit unworldly since she still lived with her parents, Sarah Peters had a mind of her own. They met when he came into the Peters' harness and saddle shop to purchase a new saddle in honor of his new job right after his return from the hill country. She easily chatted with him about which might be the best saddle in his price range without the obvious flirting of the other girls. Perhaps he should ask her to accompany him to dinner.

That noon outing when both had to get back to work soon after they finished their meal went smoothly, but ended with him telling her he'd been given an assignment to travel to Morgan County, Missouri to try to put a stop to a raging range war. There were hired guns on both sides and it was thought the presence of a Deputy US Marshal who understood Missouri but had no ties to that county could bring an end to the whole mess. When Carver told him about it, Matt agreed to travel back to the state where he spent his formative years to try his hand at bringing peace to the area and told Sarah that he'd be gone for a spell.

For his part, Troy Carver wondered if he should tell his best deputy that this was the first test to determine if he were ready to skip senior deputy and be a full US Marshal. Troy had grown quite fond of the lad. Part of him wanted Matt to stay and take over when he was ready to retire or was transferred while another part wanted to give the lad every opportunity to move forward in his chosen profession. In the end, he only told him that Washington thought, since his childhood was spent on a small Missouri farm and his youth was spent as a hired gun and cowboy before the army, he was an ideal choice for the temporary job. Matt left the next day and by the time he arrived in mid-August, the range war had been raging for two and a half months.

The first step the young lawman took upon arrival in Sunrise Beach, a town on the edge of one of the lakes in the Ozark hill country about 150 miles to the northeast of his hometown on the Missouri-Kansas border of Seneca. Matt arranged to talk with the leaders of each faction to learn what each man felt he was defending. In the beginning the men were reluctant to talk to the impertinent whippersnapper of a Deputy US Marshal Washington had sent up from Texas when the governor requested assistance. They soon learned the tall, muscular representative of the US government didn't favor one side over the other, had, despite his tender years, a commanding presence and had a ready grasp of the issues involved only partially due to having spent his childhood on a southwest Missouri farm.

Matt Dillon wasn't the Texas interloper with no knowledge of Missouri they thought had been foisted on them. Instead he was a thoughtful young man interested in finding a peaceful solution to the mess despite the fact both sides were guilty of inhumane brutality in the name of their cause. After listening to the leaders, Matt arranged to attend meetings of those fighting for each side so he could learn for himself who were the hotheads and who favored a reasoned approach. He began to form a strategy.

Once he knew which of the hired guns had been the most ruthless, Matt suggested the clearly overwhelmed local sheriff and his deputies chase them out of town as soon as their bosses on each side paid them off. Again he faced reluctance, but this time it was on the part of local law enforcement. Surprisingly, although the violence continued, the worst examples of it ended once Matt enlisted the help of the local hired guns who had a real stake in eventually ending this range war. Like many such conflicts, it began over water rights with those closest to the lakes objecting to the diversion of any lake water onto the more arid lands to the north.

Surprisingly, Matt's best ally in finding a way for both sides to get what they wanted and needed was a local lad a couple of years older than him. Trent Hawkins had honed his skills with a gun while in the army and despite his father being among the first killed in the dispute only wanted to ultimately put an end to it like the war he'd returned from fighting. Using his small posse of men and his willingness to listen to each side closely, Matt was able to finally forge a compromise that brought an end to the war being waged within the confines of Morgan County. By the time he headed back home at the end of September, this part of the Ozarks was again peaceful and his new friend Trent was headed southwest to homestead land near Fort Dodge and the growing nearby town of Dodge City with his widowed mother. It seems Mrs. Hawkins was one of those who was willing to cede her water rights because she no longer wanted to live where her husband had been gunned down. Instead, both she and her son looked to the Kansas prairie as a place for a new start.

Matt traveled with them as far as Hutchinson and then veered off on a more southerly than westerly route back toward Texas. He reached San Antonio on the last day of September. However, he didn't get to stay home long, barely finding time to squeeze in a date with Sarah and another girl or two. It seems his superiors were so pleased with what he'd accomplished in Morgan County they wanted him to join his old mentor Adam Kimbro and another up and coming buffalo hunter turned lawman Bill Hickok to try to tame Edgemont in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The task was full of more gunfights than Matt preferred, but it didn't last long so that by October he was back in San Antonio and Hickok had returned to Abilene.

Matt's return was just in time for the Harvest Ball, the annual fall sociable. He asked a very happy Sarah Peters to accompany him. A week after the dance, Carver, who had by this time hired two new deputies, called Matt into his office.

"You've probably been wondering why you've been everywhere but here in San Antonio. It's because you're being seriously considered for a promotion I've already turned down. I don't believe there's much more you need to prove before they offer you the job."

"Troy, I reckon if they offer it to me, I'll take it, but it's not 'cause I don't like being your deputy. Can you tell me what and where it is?"

"Sorry, Matt. You'll just have to wait until the offer's made since it's not definite yet. The locals have final approval on who's chosen. It's a compromise reached by Washington and them due to the circumstances surrounding the first task entailed."


	7. Chapter 7 Decisions Are Made

You're all knowledgeable readers so I'll let you figure out which episodes are the source for references to characters and events and that includes those in our Gunsmoke gang who haven't posted their reviews here. Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to comment.

**Chapter 7 – Decisions Are Made**

Word reached the Dodge City Council that both Washington and the governor and state attorney general in Topeka were in agreement that the still unincorporated town would be granted the honor of picking the new US Marshal for Kansas from the list of finalists provided since his first assignment would be to assist their City Marshal Josh Stryker and the elected sheriff of surrounding Ford County, if they chose to have one, in providing more comprehensive law enforcement than currently prevailed. Of course, should he fail, Dodge City's leading citizens would shoulder the blame. The Council immediately called for a meeting to include the council members and the most prominent citizens of the county, including representatives from nearby Fort Dodge.

Doc Adams was pleased to be included along with the town council, which consisted of Mr. Bodkin head of the Dodge City Bank, Mr. Dolby, owner of the Dodge House and Mr. Green owner of Delmonico's, mayor, Bill Pence, owner of the Long Branch and Doc's landlord Mr. Jonas, owner of the mercantile. All the big ranchers of Ford County were also on hand, Emmett Bowers, Jake Worth, Will Bart and Bear Sanderson. City Marshal Josh Stryker was conspicuously absent as he had been at the previous meeting, to which Doc hadn't been invited. The mayor presided.

"I'm a relative newcomer here compared to our distinguished ranchers and even Doc knows what things were like before the War when the railroad first began surveying to see just where the tracks would run. It may be a few years yet, as many as five, before we have a fully functional passenger depot here, but we will and we want to be a well-established community before then. Seeing as how we're not even incorporated as a town yet, we've done right well with the preliminaries in that we have elected town officials and hired a peace officer and jailer. However, in view of recent events, we collectively saw the need to move faster to provide for a stable environment."

Doc listened as one after the other of the civic leaders of both town and county spoke about the reasons behind the petition to have the new federal marshal begin his duties by putting Dodge City with its periodic influx of buffalo hunters, trappers and just plain drifters tending toward violent confrontations especially when mixed with the professional gamblers and saloon women. It was this tendency that led to hiring Stryker in the first place and he seemed to take care of things well until the marauders came through the town each May. Plus, every indication was, if the business leaders had their way, that soon Texas cattle would be coming through town, which would only make law enforcement that much harder.

The town had increased Stryker's salary, claiming it was to offset what he paid Chester as jailer, and even paid for temporary deputies when remnants of Quantrill's Raiders had joined forces with a bunch of Jayhawkers and ran riot, plundering whatever they could get their hands on. These desperate men had only one thing in common, having fought on opposite sides, a lack of any idea how they might live their lives by anything other than violence. The destruction of both life and property became so pervasive at their hands the town's citizens demanded the army send troops from Fort Dodge to restore order. Major Honeywell obliged and the request for additional permanent lawmen was sent to Topeka and, due to the use of the troopers, Washington.

Now it was up to the men meeting in this room at the Dodge House to choose the new US Marshal for Kansas from the list of three names that appeared on both the Washington and Topeka lists. An argument could be put forth for each of them. There was the older and experienced Adam Kimbro, who was currently serving as a sheriff and Deputy US Marshal in the Dakotas, the younger, less experienced Bill Hickok now serving as City Marshal in Abilene, who would probably be chosen as a Deputy US Marshal once the new marshal was appointed, unless the town council recommended him as the marshal and the even younger Matt Dillon, first hired as a deputy by Kimbro and now a Deputy US Marshal in San Antonio, who is recommended by his mentors Adam Kimbro and Jim Darling, his immediate superior Troy Carver, the respected Senior Deputy US Marshal in that Texas city and the retiring US Marshal for the Western District of Texas, Carver's superior.

"Doctor, as the man who's treated many a victim of Dodge City violence, do you have an opinion as to who might best serve our needs?" Mayor Pence asked. Remember, he also has to be accepted either as a superior or a deputy by Marshal Stryker."

"I believe Josh could possibly accept Marshal Kimbro as a temporary superior, but he'd expect him to move on to the next trouble spot within a year or less. I feel they might clash if the arrangement lasted longer than that. They are about the same age, even if Kimbro has greater general law enforcement experience. From what I've heard of Hickok, he'd want to be on an equal footing with Josh from the onset. Then there's Matt Dillon. If he's the same Matt Dillon I met here when he was newly orphaned and passing through, he'll be able to handle whatever's thrown at him and still act as if Josh is in charge. That boy has self-confidence, but it comes without ego."

The Dodge City businessmen and Worth, Bowers and Bart split their choice nearly evenly among the three candidates. Each gave his reasons, but none had actually met any of them. The final evaluation was left to John "Bear" Sanderson, the largest rancher in Kansas and the leading force behind the eventual incorporation of Dodge City as a town and the Ford County Seat.

"My feeling is that we need someone young, yet experienced and with a Texas connection if possible. On both those grounds, Kimbro is a poor fit. Hickok was still 20 when he began his career as a lawman, has served as a scout for the army and thus has a familiarity with the Indians and has been a peace officer in both Kansas and Missouri. However, he's not currently a Deputy US Marshal, although he soon will be in Abilene, and is not a Texan. That leaves Matt Dillon. While he's three years younger than Hickok at 25, he began his career the same year, 1858 when Kimbro accepted him as being already 18. From all I've heard he knows the ways of the Indians as well as or even better than Hickok, was promoted because of his ability to lead to sergeant during the war and has not only lived in Texas, currently as a Deputy US Marshal, but has also been a cowboy there. In addition, he's passed all the tests by fulfilling his special assignments with distinction, the last with Hickok. I believe despite his young age, he has all the requirements for the job including the temperament and skill with firearms."

Sanderson then called the question. His reasoning seemed to have persuaded Pence, Jonas, Worth and Bowers to join him and Doc in supporting Matt Dillon. Accordingly, Topeka and Washington were notified. The powers that be in the nation's capitol then informed the Dodge City committee of his acceptance as the youngest US Marshal ever. A letter of appointment was sent from President Johnson to be presented to the young lawman by his current superior Troy Carver.


	8. Chapter 8 Moving Onward

Attorney General James Speed, Texas Western District US Marshal William Young, governors of Texas and Kansas Andrew J. Hamilton and Samuel Johnson Crawford, respectively, and the Kansas Attorney General, Jerome D. Brumbaugh were the historical figures in those positions in the fall of 1865 when this chapter is set. His oath is the actual oath of off ice still taken by all federal employees. Sherlock, which appealed to the Holmes afficiando in me as anyone can tell from the crossover story I posted Fiddles & Footprints appears on a 1890s western Kanas map. Sarah was shown as an old girlfriend of Matt's during the run of Gunsmoke, while her parents, Mr. & Mrs. Peters, as well as the background for Matt's meeting with Leona (Lee) at her father Mr. Drummond's home comes from my imagination.

**Chapter 8 – Moving Onward**

Barely a week after the Harvest Ball, the offer to be US Marshal for Kansas provided he could prove himself in his initial task of beginning to tame Dodge City was official. Matt Dillon received a letter from Andrew Johnson, the President, appointing him to the position. That same day, Troy Carver, his boss, received a letter from the Attorney General and his own immediate superior in Austin informing him of the official appointment.

Carver hadn't been idle. Even before the dance when he'd told Matt he'd been informed that his best deputy was being considered for promotion, the Senior Deputy US Marshal for the Western District of Texas sought out a new deputy. He knew whomever he chose wouldn't hold a candle to the youngster he'd be replacing as an effective lawman, but he had to choose someone. The lad hadn't been as raw as some, especially given his age; after all, he'd gotten his feet wet before the war under Adam Kimbro and Jim Darling, two of the best lawmen ever. Still, he couldn't stand in his way either. There was no doubt in his mind Matt was ready to be his own man.

After meeting with his boss, Matt didn't hesitate; after all, this appointment was from the President of the United States, not just a local lawman. He immediately sent off wires to Washington, Topeka and Dodges City informing them he was accepting the offer and would be heading north through the Nations, as the Indian Territory in Oklahoma was called, and then along the Colorado border before turning east toward Dodge to get to know the most open part of his territory and the people who'd move through it into the town where he was told to begin. They approved of his plan by return wire in which his nearest superior informed him he'd be sworn in when he reached Austin by the US Attorney General himself who'd come to the Texas capitol to discuss who might replace the soon to retire William Young as US Marshal for the Western District. Now all Matt had to do was break the news to Sarah Peters.

He hadn't seen Sarah except in passing since the dance, but as it happened during one of those times she'd invited him to have supper with her and her parents. That supper was to be this very night. He went to his rented room to prepare. Promptly at seven, the freshly bathed, clean-shaven lawman stood upon the front porch of the Peters home and knocked on the door. Mr. Peters opened it and ushered him inside. Supper, which was the result of the combined effort of Sarah and her mother, was delicious. The promising young man, whose parents thought of as a proper suitor for their daughter even before he was offered a position by the actual President, were anxious to encourage him to take that next step. Instead, Matt told them he'd be leaving for Dodge City in the morning.

"Matt, when will you be able to send for me?" Sarah asked as they sat together on the Front Porch swing. "I'll go to where we'll be living and marry up there even though my folks would prefer a big wedding here in San Antone."

"Sarah, I'm sorry. I'm not ready to settle down, not after accepting this job. My future's too uncertain. I reckon this is goodbye."

He brushed her lips a combined quick goodnight-goodbye kiss and started to leave, but she began to cry. All he could do was hold her in his arms and try to explain that even before the new job he didn't feel like she was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with even if she believed he was the man for her. He explained they might have agreed on a future together in time had he not accepted this opportunity. They broke apart again when her sobs mutated into a quiet sniffle, as she began to understand that his career had to come first if he was ever to provide for her properly. He turned back toward her and watched as she hurried back into the house before continuing on his way home.

Matt left for Austin at dawn and arrived at the state capital the following morning. After checking into the hotel room that had already been booked for him, he rested for a couple of hours before meeting with his new boss and his soon to be colleague rather than superior for dinner at Austin's finest restaurant. Dressed in the same Sunday best, complete with string tie, he'd worn to the Harvest Ball he presented himself at the restaurant and was soon conducted to a table set under the window in a discrete corner.

During the meal Attorney General James Speed and Marshal William Young informed the young man of what was expected of him once he reached Dodge City. The meal and discussion over, the three men proceeded to the State House where Matt was introduced to the governors of both Texas and Kansas Andrew J. Hamilton and Samuel Johnson Crawford, respectively, and the Kansas Attorney General, Jerome D. Brumbaugh. The latter two had traveled by train and stage to see the tall lawman sworn in as the youngest US Marshal ever appointed.

Attorney General Speed asked the young man to put his right hand on the Bible and repeat after him "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." Matt completed his oath, adding that he would enforce the laws of both the United States and Kansas to the best of his ability, but was unsure he'd be able to everything they wanted of him. The hardest part would come once he arrived in Dodge City. Working out of that wild town he hadn't visited since he was a boy of not quite 15 when it wasn't more than a collection of temporary tents for the hunters, trappers and traders as a, albeit young man of 25, person of authority was quite the challenge. He'd have to do his duty while being careful to not step on the toes of the established residents, especially the City Marshal.

Once he was finally able to escape the politicians, Matt, now wearing his US Marshal's badge instead of the Deputy US Marshal's badge he'd given up when he left San Antonio the day before, walked back to his hotel with Young while discussing the ins and outs of being a marshal instead of a deputy, including all the paperwork. The more he learned, the more daunting the job became. Was he ready for it? He hoped so. There were far too many killers and spoilers out there who needed to be stopped. Then there was what Governor Hamilton & State Attorney General Brumbaugh had told him about Kansas, especially where he would be starting out. Dodge City, although served by a capable City Marshal, Josh Stryker, was nearly lawless because of all the transients and the less than salubrious businessmen who catered to them. To top it off, Stryker needed to believe he was still in charge, at least within the town limits. If he could meet the challenge by making minimum headway in Dodge, he would pass his probation and the appointment would become as permanent as such things are within six months of when he began.

The next morning, again dressed in his more comfortable cowboy attire, Matt saddled his buckskin to begin the trip, once he left Texas, through what was now his territory. He'd spent a good portion of the previous evening fingering that new badge and mulling over his new responsibilities in all of Kansas into the Nations and to the Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri borders. This trip would bring him through the least tamed portions of that territory until he reached Dodge City, a town already known for its violence, where he'd begin the actual work of bringing law to the frontier. He'd been told about the City Marshal there, Josh Stryker, and wondered what the man was like and if they'd get along.

A week later he was in Amarillo where he stopped to renew his supplies, allow his horse a chance to eat something other than prairie grass in the comfort of a stall and himself a real bed and something better to eat than beans. After resting for a day, Matt rode on until he reached the Canadian River, which marked the southern edge of his territory. After another couple of days, he was in Kansas along the Cimarron by the little town of Liberal. It was now late October and the young man, despite embarking on his duties, let the land wash over him. Partly, his route was dictated by a series of stage holdups the Kansas Governor wanted him to investigate as one of his first acts as US Marshal, but it was also a desire to learn his new territory. He figured on moving north along the Colorado border to the Arkansas before turning eastward to follow the river downstream until he reached his final destination, Dodge City.

Matt came to the Arkansas River at a relay station in the middle of open prairie still some 50 miles west of his destination. He was surprised the place, which consisted of a house, barn and corral, had a name, but it did. The daughter of the manager of this stopover for stagecoaches felt her home deserved a name even if to her the place she called home was mostly boring. The name simply popped into her head and so this spot along the river became known to all who visited it as Sherlock.

That blond-haired daughter was the first human he saw as he approached the cluster of buildings. The 20-year-old woman immediately caught the lawman's eye. He wondered if her personality was as vivacious as her looks.

"Hello stranger. I'm Leona Drummond, but a strong, handsome man like you can call me Lee. I'm kinda running things here while pa's hurt. The doc from Dodge is here with him now thanks to the last stage through here getting the word to him that he was needed after that last holdup. Who might you be and where are you headed?"

"Name's Matt Dillon. I'm headed for Dodge," the soon to be US Marshal for Kansas replied as he dismounted.

"Now, don't you get no ideas 'cause I'm flatterin' you; that's just so you don't run off before I put you to work. As capable as I am, I can't do everything around here until pa's back on his feet. When that happens, I'll go with you to Dodge City, that is, if you can spare the time."

She immediately took charge of his horse, leaving him with nothing to do but follow her into the barn. Together they soon had the buckskin unsaddled, rubbed down and munching away on grain in a large stall. By the time they entered the house, a cabin that consisted of a large room that doubled as sitting room and kitchen and three bedrooms, Lee had pointed out a number of tasks that she just didn't have the time to do like replacing some shingles that were loosened during the last windstorm.

"I reckon I could help out some. They're not expecting me for another two or three weeks. I could still show up early if I can get a line on the ones responsible for the holdups."

Their conversation must have been overheard because the door to one of the bedrooms opened and a short, middle-aged man walked through it. Lee quickly introduced the two men before giving either a chance to speak. The doctor was the first to get in a word.

"By golly, I never connected the name of the man we picked from the government list to learn the ropes at the start of winter when things are at their quietest with the boy who left what was to become Dodge for points west some ten years ago," Doc said sardonically with a wink. I must say you've filled out some and even managed to grow taller. How are you, Matt?"

"I'm good, Doc. When Lee here said the doc had come out from Dodge I didn't expect it to be you."

While Doc went to check on her father, Matt filled Lee in on how he and Doc had come to meet just after he was orphaned, leaving out the bit about his being beaten and left for dead on the riverbank. She continued to listen to his adventures from then until now as she worked at putting the finishing touches on their dinner. During the meal she talked of how her small family dealt with her mother dying while giving birth to her brother, who was in turned killed during a raid by the Arapaho only three years back and the occasional standoff against marauders, like the ones Matt was after, that came with running a relay station for a stage line.

Doc left two days after he came after assuring Lee that her father had passed the crisis and was on the mend. A week after Matt arrived the middle-aged man was ready to take over running the place on his own again, partially thanks to the young lawman's help getting the place ready for winter. He'd also found he was attracted to Lee, but thought nothing would come of it since he was ready to leave for his job in Dodge once he got a line on the outlaws. Still both things provided a plausible cover.

Staying at Sherlock proved useful in his first task as marshal. One of the gang rode into the place and let slip a hint as to the next place they'd strike. He paid no heed to the tall hired hand helping out and courting the girl while her pa regained his health. There was a large gold shipment headed from Denver to Dodge that would reach Sherlock on November 1 and Dodge by the third. There was a spot along the way, ten miles from the way station, where the trail narrowed down between the river and a rock outcropping. That's where and when they'd strike Matt reasoned. He prepared to leave.

"Matt, would you mind if I rode with you into Dodge? Pa can handle things here and I need to spend time in a real town, where I can shop for things that don't come in by stage. Mr. Jonas is probably wondering when I'm gonna pick up the things I ordered last time."

"I'd like that if you do exactly as I say so you don't get hurt. Can you be ready in an hour?"


	9. Chapter 9 New Job

There are no new episode or past stories of mine referenced in this chapter.

**Chapter 9 – New Job, New Girl**

During the two days they followed the Arkansas eastward toward Dodge City, Matt and Lee got a feel for each other. Lee claimed she simply was glad for the chance to spend time experiencing the excitement of the wide-open town while not having to deal with being a young woman traveling alone on the frontier in order to get there. Matt was happy to oblige her, but first he had to complete his task.

They reached the likely spot for a holdup the morning the stage was set to pass by in a couple of hours. Matt pulled the empty wagon he was driving off the road into a stand of cottonwoods. He helped Lee down and made sure she was comfortable while he sat and watched the road and they ate the sandwiches they'd brought with them. He snapped fully alert when he heard the stage approaching and crept closer to the road so he'd have a clear view of the rocks across the way that overlooked it. Three men became visible as they stood to get better aim at the driver and shotgun messenger. Matt fired at them with his rifle just as they were about to force the stage to stop. Instead, it picked up speed and rushed safely through the narrow spot.

Unbeknownst to him, Lee had also crept closer so she could see who she hoped would be her man in action. It excited her to watch him shoot the would-be robbers. She'd never felt anything like it before. Matt's bullet hit the lead man, killing him and further shots wounded one of the remaining two. Once the stage was past, both men wasted no time in surrendering. Matt had them carry their partner to the wagon while he sent Lee into the rocks to fetch their horses. By the time she returned to tie their mounts to the back of the wagon along with his own, he had both of the surviving members secured for the remainder of the trip.

Upon arrival, Matt dropped Lee at the Dodge House to secure a couple of rooms while he drove the wagon down the main street toward a brick building he surmised was the jailhouse. A man about his own age was sitting in front of it and immediately hobbled inside to alert the City Marshal. Matt had just enough time to stick his badge in his pocket before Josh Stryker appeared. Somehow he felt it might be better if the lawman didn't know why he was here until after he spoke with the town's leaders.

"Marshal, my girl and I were heading toward town when we saw these men try to rob the stage. We were camped, hidden in a grove of cottonwoods enjoying our picnic, so they didn't see us until it was too late. I just had to stop them."

"Yeah, I heard about that from Jim Buck, the driver. He sped out of there to avoid the crossfire. You took an awful chance even if you didn't have a woman with you. I'll take charge of them now, son. Just stop by the office later to give your full report. You stayin' at the Dodge House?"

"Yes sir. I'll be back directly after we get settled."

Matt saw to their horses and wagon before seeking out his one acquaintance in town. He reckoned Doc would set up a meeting with the mayor and other committee members who'd hired him to begin his life as marshal for all of Kansas in Dodge City, with the full acquiescence of the governor and state attorney general by working to tone down the lawlessness in the most violent and wicked town in the state as a way to prove his mettle. Catching those road agents was no different from what he'd already accomplished as a deputy. This town was a continuous challenge unlike the relatively peaceful San Antonio he'd just left. He only hope he survived his probation.

Before heading up the stairs to Doc's office above the General Store, Matt took the time to look up and down Front Street. Dodge had become a real town since he last visited over ten years ago. At least on the main street tents had been replaced by clapboard buildings and one brick one – the small jailhouse. He climbed Doc's stairs, still carrying his carpetbag, saddlebags, bedroll and a rifle. Putting down his carpetbag, he rapped on the doctor's door. He could hear the man's shuffling footsteps approach and then open the door to usher him inside.

"Glad you stopped by here first, Matt. I don't know if they told you when you were sworn in, but you need to pass a physical before you assume your duties. I'm sure it's just a formality in your case."

"Sure, Doc," he replied as he sat on the examining table and began to unbutton his shirt as instructed. What's next?"

"You're certainly in far better shape than when I last had you in my office. I can't find any trace of those old injuries, but then you had a very fine physician tending you. Go get rid of your gear. The committee will meet with you in the large room to your left as you come down the stairs of the Dodge House into the lobby."

Matt made his way across the street to the hotel, stopping in the lobby only long enough to collect his key and make note of the location of the room for the meeting. Lee had managed to get them adjoining rooms with a connecting door between. He unlocked his door to find Lee, although still in her room, had opened the door between them. She walked through it at the sound of his footsteps.

Matt's face reddened at the sight of how she was dressed, or rather undressed. Lee wore only an open robe over her petticoat, having discarded the gingham dress she'd worn during the trip from Sherlock. She looked at his embarrassment in surprise causing her to stop short before rushing into his arms.

"Matt, I thought you were ready for something more. It's not as if we just met. We've been living in the same house for almost a month now. I thought you understood when you agreed to take me with you to Dodge City."

"Uh, I reckon I didn't. We've hardly even kissed. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm willing if you're sure that's what you want, but not until after my meeting."

In answer she dropped her robe. He encased her in his big, strong arms and bent down to give her a kiss, surprised at how passionate it became. Still, he pushed her away and took a step back. There was time enough for that later, but then again…. Trying his best to fight his arousal, Matt lost and turned back to Lee. She really was his girl. She helped him out of his dusty clothes as they danced toward the bed. Again he stopped himself.

"Lee, they're expecting me downstairs right away. You'll have to be patient. Right now I have to wash and change into fresh clothes for that meeting. I don't want to make a bad impression my first day on the job."

She reluctantly agreed to wait, moving back to her own room and shutting the door behind her so he could concentrate on getting cleaned up and changed. Five minutes later he was dressed in a clean shirt, his spare pants and the Sunday coat he'd last worn at the dance with Sarah. He decided to forego the string tie, but did pin the new badge to his shirt over his heart under the jacket. After a final check that his hair was combed and no shaving soap remained on his face, Matt left his room to head downstairs for what could be the most important meeting of his life.

He strode into the room trying to exude more confidence than he felt. He thought back to when he swore the oath for his new job in Austin. This had to be easier or so he kept telling himself. Only two men were in the room, Doc and a middle-aged bear of a man, who Doc introduced as Bear Sanderson, the largest rancher in the state and founder of the county and town. Matt relaxed as he learned Bear and Doc were his biggest local supporters. Within ten minutes the rest of the men arrived, Mayor Pence, banker Bodkin, hotel man Dolby, shopkeeper Jonas, restaurant owner Green and ranchers Bart, Bowers and Worth.

"Sit down, young man, " Mayor Pence said, indicating a chair at the table. "Welcome to Dodge City. It's up to you where you room, but I suggest you find a more modestly priced rooming house rather than this hotel. You'll understand once we lay out the ground rules," he continued as the others took their seats.

"I've spoken with Governor Crawford and Attorney General Brumbaugh. They tell me you're to capture the gang that's been waylaying stages between here and the Colorado border. That's something you'll have to find a way to work in while coping with your duties here. Marshal Stryker will assign those. He's a proud man and while he'll accept he needs help, he won't take kindly to someone more than ten years his junior being in reality his superior. As far as he knows, we've hired a deputy for him. To that end we have a deputy's badge for you to pin on instead of the US Marshal's badge you're currently wearing. Do you think you can handle that?"

"I reckon I can. I already took care of the outlaws on my way into town and turned them over to Marshal Stryker. I'll find a way to get my report off without him knowing about it. Don't worry he's got no idea who I am. I wasn't wearing my badge when I turned the prisoners over to him."

"Well, Marshal Dillon, that's just fine. Looks like we may just have picked the right man. What do you say Doc and I walk you over to the jailhouse with you and formally introduce Josh to his new deputy?" Mayor Pence replied.


	10. Chapter 10 US MarshalDeputy City Marsha

I just had to mention that room of Matt's that was referenced, but only shown maybe once, and we all know Matt truly believed what Adam Kimbro told him about family and the badge.

**Chapter 10 – How a US Marshal Can Be a Deputy City Marshal**

During their walk down the boardwalk to the jailhouse Pence and Doc filled Matt in on what they'd told the marshal he was about to meet about him and the job he was about to undertake. In keeping with precedent, that is saving the town money whenever possible, they didn't agree, even though they weren't paying any portion of his salary, to use the town money to pay for his room. However, for what they deemed convenience sake, they'd chosen one at the back of Ma Smalley's boarding house with its own entrance so he could come and go without being seen.

The three men walked through the door into the jailhouse office where Marshal Josh Stryker was seated behind his desk and the sometime jailer Chester Goode was at the stove fetching a cup of coffee for his boss. Once the two townsmen and the young stranger were seated at the table in the middle of the room, Chester offered each of them a cup of the brew. Stryker joined them as soon as Chester brought his chair to the table from behind the desk, indicating that the young man with the gimpy leg should take the remaining seat.

"Doc, Pence so this is the youngster you brought up from Texas to be my deputy. Now that we're getting more drovers from there, he should be of some use in handling them. I'm Marshal Josh Stryker. How much experience have you got as a deputy, ….?"

"Matt Dillon, sir," the tall young man replied, extending his right hand to shake the proffered hand of his supposed new boss. "I got my start as a deputy in Yuma back in '58 and have been working as a lawman in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and even the Dakota Territory ever since except when I was in the army during the war. How can I be of use to you without steppin' on the toes of the deputy you already have even if the town didn't see fit to give him a badge?"

"Sorry, Deputy. I should have introduced you to my part-time jailer, Chester Goode. He can be a real help at times, but he ain't no deputy and I don't pay him as such. In exchange for redin' the place up, feedin' the prisoners and such, I let him sleep on one of the cots over behind you and pay him out of my pocket so he's available to be the jailer or help with the rounds. I'm sure you two young men will soon be friends. Oh, and since you're my deputy and already made one arrest, you can write the report on the stage robbers for Topeka that I would have needed from you anyway."

By the time Doc and Bill Pence had left for the Long Branch and Stryker had explained his deputy duties, it was well into the afternoon. He had to move into his new room and, his grumbling stomach reminded him, catch an early supper before undertaking his first set of rounds for the evening. Then there was Lee. Matt wondered how she'd take to his moving out of the hotel and when he might see her once she returned to Sherlock. He strode back to the Dodge House. The one thing that was settled was getting his first report out. The State Attorney General could send it on to Washington when he received it along with the report for the state.

To his surprise Lee was in the lobby when he entered. She'd just returned from finalizing switching jobs with the current manager of the stage line. His wife had just given birth to their first child and so he welcomed the chance to move out to the Sherlock relay station to help her pa. Unbeknownst to Matt or Mr. Drummond, Lee had begun to negotiate the switch so that she could experience the excitement that was the growing town of Dodge City several month earlier when she'd ordered new clothes from Mr. Jonas' catalogs. She would remain one more night at the hotel, return to Sherlock for a week and, on her return, take over the rooms above the depot from the former depot manager's family.

While Lee was gone Matt's life fell into a routine. He'd rise early, eat breakfast at the boarding house or a café if one were open and complete his morning rounds. He used this time to introduce himself to the businessmen along Front Street and the blocks of the cross streets on either side of the main street that also contained commercial enterprises. Then he'd stop by the office to see if Stryker needed him for anything special and to play checkers with Chester. If Stryker didn't eat dinner at his home, the City Marshal would join the two young men for a meal at Delmonico's. In the afternoon, if Doc wasn't busy, he'd visit with the physician, stop for a drink at the Long Branch before his early evening rounds, and then have supper with Doc and/or Chester. Then he'd visit each of the saloons, gambling dens and brothels as part of his final set of rounds and on to bed in his room. He thought about dallying with one of the saloon gals, but even though they were paid to entertain him, he felt he should be loyal to the girl he was thinking of seriously courting. He owed it to her. She'd given herself to him.

Even after Lee returned, being a US Marshal for Kansas didn't seem as big a deal as he thought after being appointed by the President and taking that daunting oath. There would be no problem keeping up the charade that he was merely a Deputy City Marshal. Still, he couldn't assume the job would continue to be this easy. After all it was the beginning of winter when things were slowest. The transient population was rapidly shrinking down to nothing. Matt felt certain this wouldn't be the case come spring. The one good thing about the quiet months, they did allow him to get to know Lee better.

Matt took to spending very few evenings in the room the town leaders insisted he rent. Within a month of Lee's return he was spending most nights sharing her bed. It was what she indicated she wanted that first day at the Dodge House. It just might be a good idea for him to save as much as he could so he could buy a ranch, stock it and then ask her to marry him. Adam Kimbro had drummed it into him when he first started before the war that being a lawman and raising a family didn't mix. He hated to give up the badge and go back on his oath, but he was still on probation and besides, so far he'd done more as a junior deputy in San Antonio than he was doing in Dodge City as the US Marshal for Kansas.

The late fall and early winter did see him breaking up his share of saloon fights and even arresting the culprit when one of the shopkeepers was the victim of thievery. Then there were the crooked gamblers to run out of town. It seemed Stryker left all the routine, yet physical law enforcement to Matt so he could spend more time with his wife and young daughter and even spend evenings visiting with their closest friends on their nearby ranch. Surrounding Ford County was still sparsely settled enough that those outside the unofficial city limits largely had their own ways to enforce their personal laws. Matt figured if universally applied law were ever to be taken seriously in and around Dodge, he'd have to change that, if he ever got the chance.


	11. Chapter 11 Plans & Decisions

Matt returns to Texas on assignment with a direct reference to Season 7's Long, Long Trail and a passing reference to Season 10's Hung High. The situation with the Texas cattlemen & Indian land is based on the history of that geographic area.

**Chapter 11 – Plans and Decisions**

A new year, 1866, dawned. Matt felt he wasn't doing much to bring a new respect for the law to western Kansas and Dodge City in particular by the routine tasks he was performing. On the other hand, he hadn't asked Lee to marry him yet or turned in his resignation. He wanted to get his savings from the San Antonio bank where he'd left them and to scout out a possible site to begin building a cattle and horse ranch. The San Antonio money and what he'd managed to save so far in Dodge gave him a good start.

Then there was Lee. She had a way of doing things so she got what she wanted. First she convinced him to take her with him from Sherlock to Dodge. Then she took it upon herself to convince Carl and Brenda Weber that the relay station she named Sherlock was a better place to raise a family and a far better fit for a couple than for a single woman whose young man was assigned as a lawman to Dodge City. Sarah Peters would never have done anything like that. As far as he knew she was still waiting for him to send for her in San Antone or, even better, hold the wedding there. Matt had never known a strong woman like Lee. All that remained was to find a place for them to settle and for him to quit his job once she said yes.

It was during the January thaw that a chance came to head south. Washington notified him through Mr. Bodkin at the bank that they wanted him to deal with a situation down along the Cherokee Strip in The Nations. The city of El Paso was sending their top deputy to meet him in Beaver along the north fork of the Canadian River. It wasn't really a town, more a trading post and stage stop for the Indian Agents and other Whites passing through, among them Texas cattlemen seeking a better place to pasture the long-horn cattle they'd roped between there and El Paso than the land immediately around the west Texas border community. If they could graze them near Beaver, they'd be that much fatter when sold.

The problem was the Kiowa under their young chief Little Bear didn't want them there and would do anything to keep all Whites associated with the cattlemen out of the lands they occupied under agreement with the Cherokee who owned the land.

Matt knew why he was chosen. He'd been a Texas cowboy before the war as well as a hired gun along the border in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before becoming a deputy in Yuma, Arizona to Adam Kimbro before his 18th birthday. Even before he set out on his own at not quite 15 after his parents' deaths, he'd come to know the ways of the tribes living in The Nations and to respect, if not agree with, their ways. He knew nothing much about Roy Tuttle, whom he'd met once when sent on government business from San Antonio to El Paso, except that the man was a scout for the army during the Indian wars before rejoining civilian life after the South surrendered as a deputy in El Paso near where he came of age on a ranch and now worked for another mentor and friend, Sheriff Jim Downey.

Matt's first stop was the stage depot where Lee was behind the counter dispensing tickets to passengers. He waited until the last person in the short line bought his passage to Hays before walking up to talk to the blond young woman who fascinated him so much that if possible, he wanted to keep her in his life. He looked around the room to make sure nobody could hear before starting to speak.

"Lee, you're the only person in town not on the city council who knows who I really work for. They want me to do a job for them down in The Nations. I'll be leaving as soon as I take care of a few things."

"Matt, a real assignment. That's wonderful! I'd really love it if you took me along!"

"Sorry honey. It's just too dangerous for a pretty white woman in Indian Territory even with me escorting her, you know. Then there's the Texas cowboys stirrin' them up who wouldn't mind one bit if you were to share some of their time."

She tried to argue that if she was with him nothing could possibly happen to her, but he stood his ground. There was no way he'd let her be exposed to that sort of danger. Finally, she reluctantly let the matter drop and kissed him goodbye. Matt's next stop was the jailhouse. He hoped Stryker would give him the time off without asking too many questions. Although the older man had relaxed enough with him to allow Matt to call him Josh, instead of Mr. Stryker, the man still considered himself to be his boss.

"Hey there, Deputy. What's on your mind?"

"Josh, it's pretty quiet around here and the weather's good so I wonder if you'd do me a favor? I'd like some time off to ride back to Texas and bring back the rest of my stuff."

"Sure thing. Just be sure you don't take more than a couple of weeks, but then I'm sure you want to get back to that gal of yours."

There were only two more places to stop. First at the bank so Mr. Bodkin could wire Matt's bank in San Antonio to send his depositor's money from there to El Paso with an accompanying authorization for Matt to pick it up there. Doc would then send Matt's acceptance of the assignment. That way Barney wouldn't be able to guess that Matt was the "our man in Dodge" referred to in the telegram asking him to perform the special assignment or if he did, wouldn't think Matt was doing anything more than gathering his remaining gear from his old home.

Matt brought his horse from Moss Grimock's stable, along with a second animal that the government had assigned to him to use as a packhorse, and stepped into Wilbur Jonas' store to give him a list of things he'd need. When the money for that second horse had come through Matt made a big show of buying the gelding from the stableman in case he needed a spare. Finally, he climbed the stairs to Doc Adams' office.

"Be with you in a minute. Have a seat," Doc said before glancing up from rolling pills. "Oh, it's you, Matt."

"Yeah, Doc. It's me. I'm heading to The Cherokee Strip and then Texas on assignment, but you already know that. What you don't know is I plan to look at that ranch you've been telling me about that's between Meade and Sherlock but still in Ford County about 20 miles from here. If I like what I see I'll make arrangements to stock it on my way home. I plan on bringing the money back here, but I'll cancel the agreement if Lee doesn't like the place or she says no to marryin' up with me. If she agrees, I'll file a claim at the regional land office in Wichita."

"Matt, are you sure that's what you want? It would mean giving up your badge."

"Yeah, I know that, Doc. You're the only one who knows about this. I don't plan on resigning unless Lee says yes. I'm not doing much good, but she's the only reason I'd forsake my oath. You'll send the coded wire that I've started the assignment right after I leave so Barney can't give Josh any reason to suspect I'm more than his deputy, won't you? Bodkin took care of the rest."

After a quick bite at Delmonico's and loading his supplies, Matt turned toward the Arkansas, riding due west once he reached it for ten miles before turning south for another ten miles toward Crooked Creek. The southern border of the place was along the creek, but the actual house was closer to Dodge, while the northwestern edge of the property lay closer to Sherlock. It was a small ranch, only around double the standard 240 acres of a homestead, but there was room for expansion onto other homestead land if needed. There might not be enough water for straight farming, which was why, along with the threat of Indian attack, the folks who had it before abandoned the place, but there was plenty of grass and water for livestock and a deep well had already been dug to supply the house, a three-room cabin really, barn and vegetable garden. He'd probably even be able to provide enough hay to feed his herd during the winter snows. Expanding the cabin to accommodate a growing family wouldn't be much of a problem.

Matt was pleased with what he saw. He only hoped Lee agreed. First, however, he had a job to do. He left the shelter of the small cabin, retrieved his horses from the barn and was on his way to Beaver to perform what might be his last assignment as a US Marshal as dawn was breaking the next morning. Of course, he'd stay on until they found a replacement. He and Lee would marry and settle on the ranch as soon as that happened.

Matt managed to cover 40 miles that day without pushing it and arrived in Beaver a day later at dusk. Roy Tuttle, the local Indian Agent, Tom Wiggins, an army patrol and several dozen cattlemen and cowboys were there to greet him along with the proprietor. He put up his horses, secured a room and was seated at a table with Roy, Wiggins, two representative cattlemen, Jake Hawthorne and Clay Hopkins, and the lieutenant leading the patrol, Jim Seaver talking strategy and filling their bellies within 15 minutes.

The two lawmen agreed to ride out to meet the rest of the cattlemen where they were camped along the river along with their cattle while Wiggins would ride back to his post at the Darlington Agency. Matt and Tuttle spent the rest of the evening before turning in finalizing the marshal's strategy for handling the potentially explosive situation. Matt, being the federal man, was in charge and made sure Hawthorne and Hopkins were aware of it as they rode out early the next morning.

By the time the four men reached where most of the Texas cattle were grazing, Matt had a pretty clear idea of where the cattlemen stood. They wanted to lease grazing rights from the Indians at the lowest possible price with the stipulation that the lease would in reality amount to something permanent. Forget negotiating the terms each spring. If they could keep a certain percentage of the cattle in the Strip, those steers would be that much fatter when they reached the railhead in towns like Dodge City, whose depot wasn't finished yet. However, the adjoining stockyards soon would be.

Matt left finding out how flexible the Texans might be to Tuttle while he rode on toward the nearest Indian village to learn where they stood and if that stance was open to negotiation. After a couple of hours he saw two whites tormenting a young Kiowa woman – a girl really – just beyond a cover of cottonwoods beside a pond. Her dress was already torn half off. Instead of riding straight on, he veered off into the trees where he left his horse. Even if this northern stretch of The Nations was barely within his jurisdiction, there was no way he could allow the girl to be molested.

Matt inched forward on foot until he was at the edge of the trees providing his cover. He called out to the two men to leave the girl alone as he shifted his rifle to his left hand and drew his peacemaker from his holster with his right. They ignored him even after he fired above their heads. Identifying himself before firing off another round, one of the men let go of the girl and whirled toward him, shooting as he did so. In the instant the ruffian turned, Matt fired. The man lay wounded by the pond. Matt advanced and the second man turned toward him, allowing the girl to run off toward another stand of trees along the pond to Matt's left. However, he wasn't quite ready to surrender.

The would-be defiler's defiant attitude didn't matter. Before Matt could make another attempt at arresting him, an arrow pierced the scumbag's shoulder and he fell forward like his partner. The brave responsible ignored Matt while the young marshal checked to see how badly off the men were. Then, to Matt's surprise, after other braves arrived to drag off the prisoners, the Indian spoke in English.

"Do you defy my right to punish these two? You are white man, they are white men, but they have done harm on Kiowa land. This is not first time whites with herds have done this. We will bring war to white man's village called Beaver if you cannot show you are different from them."

"I only tried to stop them. Punishment under Kiowa law may be different from what it is under white man's law, but I respect your right to enforce your own law on your land. I'm a United States Marshal chosen by the Great White Father in Washington who sent me here to stop a war between our two people because of men like the two your braves took away. I, Matt Dillon, would like to hear your side."

"I am Little Bear. You come Matt Dillon. We talk and listen, but first you watch."

Matt followed the young chief to where the punishment of the two men was taking place. Matt wanted to turn his face away from what he considered torture. The punishment reminded him of the violent cruelty he'd witnessed during the war. Still, he sensed Little Bear wanted him as a witness along with the girl they'd molested. It was a test just like this assignment was yet another test designed to prove he was really ready to be a marshal.

"It is done. They will die. My sister Spring Dove is avenged. It is time we sit and you listen before you talk."

Little Bear led Matt to his teepee where they sat and performed the required rituals. Matt was offered a bowl of water for washing, food and finally a pipe, in all of which he partook. This seemed to please Little Bear.

"You do not shun our ways, Lawman Matt Dillon. This is good."

As the day became night, Little Bear told Matt of what the Kiowa thought of the Texans and their cattle. They had no objections to the use of their land for the cattle to graze as long as such activity didn't interfere with the herds of buffalo that were so necessary to the tribe's way of life. They also wished for them to obey Kiowa law while on Kiowa land and generally respect their ways. Matt began to feel he might just be able to negotiate an agreement.

The next morning, after enjoying the hospitality of the Kiowa encampment, Matt and Little Bear rode to a meeting ground Agent Wiggins suggested where the North Fork of the Canadian River came close to Buffalo Creek. The chief was backed by a contingent of five warriors, which was matched by Hawthorne and Hopkins representing the cattlemen and Lieutenant Seaver and Roy Tuttle with Matt as the arbiter.


	12. Chapter 12 Long Road Home

This chapter refers directly to Season 9's Friend.

**Chapter 12 – Long Road Home to Dodg**e

The meeting Matt mediated between the cattlemen and the Indians was a success. Little Bear agreed the Texans could graze their cattle on either side of the North Fork of the Canadian River in winter as long as they didn't bring them east of Buffalo Creek or west of Beaver. Some cattle could even graze year-round west and north of Beaver. In exchange, the Kiowa wanted no interference with the buffalo herds and an annual payment of $5 per head grazed on the winter pastures and $10 a head for those grazed year-round. The money would be used to purchase, either in Beaver or at the local Agency, whatever supplies were necessary to sustain the tribe in both lean and abundant years. The agreement resulted in fatter cattle to bring to market at relatively low cost so all sides benefited.

Much to his embarrassment, all the parties involved in the negotiations that led to the pact felt it could never have been reached without the young marshal's assistance and leadership. From his point of view he only listened to what each side wanted and kept everyone from getting so hotheaded they lost sight of any possible compromise that might benefit all parties. All that remained was for him to write his report to his superiors in Washington and ride with Roy Tuttle back to El Paso. He'd even made a preliminary sales arrangement, including a small down payment, for 50 head of cattle to be shipped to him once he filed on the land he wanted, that is, if Lee proved willing. In addition, not only Hawthorne and Hopkins, who agreed to a very reasonable price for the cattle they would sell him, but the majority of the Texans agreed to bring their herds up the dry fork of the Santa Fe Trail instead of using the Chisholm Trail further east.

Five days into his trip, his task for the government complete, Matt continued with the personal portion of his trip. He and Tuttle traveled the 350 miles from Beaver to El Paso in a week. Camping out on the prairie the first night, they were able to stay in a hotel in Amarillo the second night and replenish their supplies in that town. From there the two men traveled southwest into New Mexico and then back into Texas just north of El Paso in the remaining five days, arriving in time for supper with Jim Downey and a few drinks in the local saloons.

The next morning, Thursday, Matt wrote his report and managed to get it into the mail pouch for the afternoon stage to Austin. From there it would be forwarded to Washington. Friday morning he gathered his savings from the El Paso bank, stuffing all $1,000 into the money belt he now wore. Bidding farewell to his friends Jim and Roy, Matt headed back home the same way he'd come while it was still mid-morning unaware he'd been watched when he purchased the money belt and later in the bank and then followed at a discrete distance.

As he traveled northward, Matt thought about the path he'd followed since he'd been orphaned. He'd rebelled against the quiet farm life offered by Seneca, Missouri, but even that backwater town had witnessed the ravages of the war. Even had he not gone west to face the excitement he craved to prove himself a man, he would have fought in the war. What he wouldn't have done was learn to be fast and accurate with a gun, fight rustlers and border raiders with firearms and fists or even learned the skills of a cowhand. He certainly wouldn't have become a marshal or met a woman like Leona Drummond who could face up to the dangers life on the frontier could throw at anyone who dared to confront the harsh life of the prairie. He no longer wanted the constant excitement he sought as a youth. The war had drained him of that. Instead, the young man wanted challenge tempered by a conviction that he was helping to bring more civilized ways to the prairie and a certain amount of stability to himself by establishing a permanent home. The badge, when it meant what he'd just accomplished, could provide that, but so could developing a ranch against odds and raising a family. He took off the US Marshal's badge and slipped it into the pocket of his spare shirt in his saddlebags along with the Deputy City Marshal's badge he wore for Josh Stryker's sake.

The days and nights on the trail melted into each other, giving him time to appreciate the nature that surrounded him and reflect on where he fit into the scheme of things. It was uneventful until he was three hours outside Amarillo on his fourth full day heading home. Matt found a secluded place to camp, planning on arriving in the town the next morning and, after replenishing his supplies and a bath and a shave, to camp on the panhandle side of the Cherokee Strip, about 100 miles south of Beaver. He shot a couple of rabbits and was leaning forward to put the spit containing the meat over the fire and wondering what Lee would think of his cooking when he felt a hard blow to the back of his head. Before he could react and strike back at his assailant, a series of rapid punches and then kicks knocked him off his feet and finally, rendered him unconscious.

Matt awoke in great pain in a bed. Someone was sitting next to the bed talking to another man, who was standing.

"It's a good thing you found him when you did, Mr. Nellis and brought him to me. Otherwise, even with his obviously strong constitution, he wouldn't have survived."

"I couldn't have done anything else once I came across him, doctor. Do you think he'll come around any time soon?"

"I'm awake," Matt replied. "Can you tell me who you are and where I am? The last thing I remember is someone beating me senseless. I should never have let my guard down."

"I'm Dr. Westgate. The man who saved your life by bringing you to my office in Amarillo is Judd Nellis. When you're up to it, Mr. Nellis will fetch the sheriff so you can describe who's responsible to him."

"Don't bother. I never saw who robbed me; at least I reckon I was robbed. I doubt you have my money belt here. However, you can wire Doc Adams in Dodge City and let him know I'll be late getting back."

Matt was right about that. During the two days he spent healing from the results of, in Matt's mind, his stupidity, the tall young man came to know his rescuer and a bit of what happened from the time he was beaten as badly or worse than when he was still a boy the first time he was in Dodge City until he awoke in Doc Westgate's back room. His $1,000 dollars was gone and so was his hope of fully stocking the ranch he hoped Lee would share with him.

On the third morning Matt was heading northward again, but not alone. The dark-haired man with the round face who stood about six feet tall that he'd come to know as Judd Nellis accompanied him. They traveled together as far as Meade, allowing Nellis to wheedle what he'd planned to spend the money he no longer had on out of Matt and both learning they were alone in the world. He was a good man, the young lawman decided, or he wouldn't have helped him and in so doing saved his life. Nellis turned northwest toward Colorado and Matt continued northeast to home, but he hoped to see the man he now considered a friend again. He also hoped to find out who had gotten the best of him. Matt vowed to trust instinct and never let his guard down again even if he gave up the badge for Lee.

The next day brought him home. The first thing he did after putting up his horse and washing some of the dust off was to check in at the Dodge City jailhouse. Stryker was behind his desk but rose to greet the young man and welcome him back.

"Tell me, Matt how was your trip back to Texas? Glad to see nobody convinced you to stay there. Then again, maybe the reason you came back here has something to do with those bruises on your face since you sent your telegram to Doc and not me. Or is it that girl you rode in with that first day?"

"Nope. I was already headed back here when I got stomped on the back of the head by a buffalo from behind and he stampeded off with my money. It may just be Josh, that Lee's the real reason I came back. If you don't need me, I'll go see her."

City Marshal Stryker was glad to give the tall young man he considered his deputy the rest of the night off. It was mid-winter and the town was quiet. Tomorrow was Friday so things would begin to pick up and both lawmen might find themselves as busy as it ever was during winter. Matt gladly went in search of Lee to ask her to supper, but first he paid a visit to the barbershop for a haircut, shave and bath. He planned to be ready to wear his Sunday best for their first evening together in over three weeks.


	13. Chapter 13 More Surprises

**Chapter 13 – More Surprises**

Despite still feeling a bit sore from his beating, Matt didn't want Doc Adams to know about it, but doubted the crafty physician would miss the bruises he still carried if Josh Stryker didn't. Just his luck, Doc and Chester Goode were crossing Front Street as he came out of the barbershop on his way to Bodkin's bank.

"Hello, Mr. Dillon. Doc and me was just headin' over ta the Long Branch for a beer."

"What Chester's trying to say is that he'd like to buy you a drink to celebrate your triumphant return home. The trip was successful, wasn't it?" Doc queried as he looked closely at Matt's face.

"Yeah, you could say it was partially successful, Doc. I'll have that drink with you, but then I've got to find Lee to find out if my homecoming is a success."

The three friends took their places at the bar and carried their bottle and glasses to an available table. Well, in truth Doc and Matt shared the bottle of rye while Chester stuck with a beer and it was Doc who paid for it all. Being careful not to reveal his assignment to the jailhouse assistant, who didn't know his friend was anything but the deputy and his boss when the marshal was away, the tall, young man told them about the land he'd found and arranging for putting stock on it if he decided to go through with becoming a rancher. At that point Chester, his beer mug empty, excused himself to complete the errand he was running for Marshal Stryker.

"Come up to my office, Matt. We can talk privately there. Then you can find Lee. She's a much better looking supper companion than me."

Once they were alone in the town doctor's office, Matt revealed everything about the completion of his mission for the Government. Before Doc completed his examination of the mostly healed injuries he;d suffered at the hands of an unknown assailant, the older man knew about the robbery and his plans to show the ranch to Lee the next day despite the fact he could no longer afford more than ten or 20 head, depending on the price come spring, using the $200 he'd managed to save in the Dodge City Bank. Horses would have to be caught wild and properly fixing up the house and barn would have to wait until he could earn some more money as a lawman. At $60 a month, that would be a while.

Finally, by three, the young man was able to break free of the doctor and complete his business at the bank. He would put off stopping at the land office until after he showed the place to Lee and she approved. A clerk he didn't recognize was behind the counter in the stage office. The bespectacled youth, anxious to keep a good job, refused to say whether or not his boss was upstairs in her rooms even if he actually knew the answer. Matt chose to ignore his shouts of protest as he strode past the counter into the back room and climbed the stairs leading to the private quarters he more often than not had shared with Lee since she made it her home.

She wasn't there, but she entered the back room just as he started back down the stairs accompanied by protests and warnings from the clerk. Lee stared at him and slowed her pace before finally stepping into his encircling arms.

Pushing back a step or two from him, she said, "How long have you been back? It seemed like you've been gone forever."

"Just since early this afternoon," he replied. "I was hoping we could have supper tonight to make up for lost time."

"Yeah, I reckon I could manage that. What time will you be by for me?"

"I'll pick you up at seven. That clerk should be gone by then."

"Don't worry. We'll give him something to think about when we walk back out front with your arm on mine."

Promptly at seven Matt Dillon let himself into the darkened office dressed in his Sunday best, his boots newly shined and a string tie under his shirt collar. A lamp was burning in the back room that served as an office to light the way to the stairs. He climbed them and knocked on her door. Ten minutes later, he put the lamp on the small table by the office door and dimmed it before escorting Leona Drummand outside and down Front Street to the dining room at the Dodge House rather than the less elegant Bedino's Café or the newly opened Delmonico's. The owner, Mr. Dolby, had agreed to let the young man dine with his young lady despite the fact neither was a current hotel guest.

Matt and Lee enjoyed a leisurely meal at a corner table. They were just finishing up their dessert when Matt decided it was time to, if not pop the question, at least see if she might be leaning toward accepting. He'd use some of his remaining savings to buy a ring if it seemed she was amenable to the idea, but he had brought a small cameo with him in a box from a store in Amarillo that hadn't been taken when his money was stolen. He reckoned the thief didn't think it was worth enough to bother trying to sell it. It wasn't. He'd only paid $5 for it.

"Uh, Lee, I bought this while I was in Texas," he said handing her the small box. "Open it."

"It's very pretty, Matt, but I'd much rather have been with you while you were down there."

"Me too, but it was too dangerous. To make up for being apart so long, I thought we could take a buggy ride out toward Meade on tomorrow morning so I can show you a place I spotted."

"I'd love to, but I too much to do tomorrow. Were you planning on asking me something once you got me out there? You might as well ask me now. I don't need to be out on the prairie to hear it."

"All right, but I can't do it proper. Leona Drummond, if you might be leaning toward us getting hitched I could do it right with a ring and all."

Before the young woman could respond, Chester rushed into the room. He made his way to their table as soon as he spotted them.

"Sorry to interrupt yah, Mr. Dillon. The bank's been robbed and Mr. Stryker wants us to ride out after them while he locks up the one that didn't get away."

"Bring our horses and a couple of rifles. I'll meet you out front of the office as soon as I see Lee home."

Matt made quick work of seeing Lee to her door and raced off toward his room to quickly change into something more appropriate for chasing outlaws across the prairie. He had no time to wait for an answer from Lee, just brushing her lips before she entered her home. He thought she'd turn in early thanks to their shortened date because she had so much to do in the morning. Instead, there she was walking down the boardwalk with a man with dark hair like his own, but straighter, at least three inches shorter and dressed for town living. He'd ask her about him when he got the chance, but Chester was already waiting with their horses.

If the moon hadn't been full, there would have been no chance to catch the outlaws. All they would have done would be to endanger the horses on the darkened prairie while following blindly in the general direction the gang had taken, south out of town, 15 minutes earlier. The robbers had made no attempt to hide their tracks, which also helped. The two young men rode out of town together easily following the trail until, an hour later, they smelled smoke pouring out the chimney of a shack where the gang set up their camp.

Leaving their horses behind the two lawmen approached cautiously. Thanks to the trees surrounding the hideout they couldn't tell if all three men were inside of if one was on watch. They found the lookout when a bullet whizzed by Matt's ear causing him to throw himself onto the ground while Chester, who was slightly to the rear, jumped behind the nearest tree and fired his rifle in the direction he thought the bullet had come before Matt could get off a shot or the men inside could start shooting. His aim proved accurate or so the two friends found out when they crept forward while exchanging fire with the two men who'd left the shelter of the cabin and were also closing the gap between them and the posse of two.

"Don't shoot again. We give up," the two outlaws shouted when Matt's bullet forced the one slightly to Matt's left to drop his pistol at the moment Chester nearly tripped over the man who'd been on watch.

"I must have hit the one that started the shootin' Mr. Dillon. He's dead right here at my feet."

"All right, throw down your weapons and put your hands in the air," Matt told them. "You're under arrest for robbing the Dodge bank."

Within ten minutes four men, five horses, one with a corpse tied across the saddle, and two saddlebags full of the bank's money were on their way back to town. An hour later Matt turned the remaining two robbers and the money over to Marshal Stryker while Chester took the body to the undertaker and saw to the horses. Matt went to get Doc to tend to the arm of the outlaw he'd shot, leaving the good doctor at the jailhouse door.

"Chester, that was a good piece of shooting out there," Matt said as he joined the returning jailer. "I believe I owe you a drink."

"Aw, Mr. Dillon. It twern't nothin', but I won't turn it down if you want to buy me a beer," Chester replied as the two men walked down the boardwalk toward the Lady Gay where the crowd was just a tad rougher, but the drinks were a smidgeon cheaper.


	14. Chapter 14 Some Decisions Are Made for Y

In addition to the continued reference to Time of the Jackel from Season 14, there's also a direct reference to Season 1's Reed Survives.

**Chapter 14 – Some Decisions Are Made for You**

Matt and Chester pushed through the crowd to the bar where Matt ordered a rye for himself and a beer for his friend. He didn't need to do the early evening rounds because Josh Stryker had already taken care of them while he and his companion were out rounding up the rest of the gang. Still, out of habit he surveyed the room while he sipped his drink. It was then he spotted Lee sitting on a chair to the right and slightly behind the gambler he'd seen her with earlier.

"C'mon, finish your beer so we can get out of here. I'd rather get a table at the Long Branch until my late rounds."

Chester downed the rest of his beer quickly and followed Matt out of the saloon and back onto Front Street, brushing against Lee's chair as he did. His friend's reason for leaving so abruptly was now perfectly clear.

At the Long Branch Matt and Chester each bought a beer, which they brought to an empty table against the stairs. The tall marshal planned to nurse this drink and enjoy what remained of the evening despite what he'd seen at the Lady Gay. Morning would be soon enough to talk with Leona Drummond. At least he'd be well rested because he planned on sleeping in his own room tonight. Meanwhile, he'd content himself with spending the rest of the evening with Chester.

Even in here, it didn't take long for their quiet conversation to be interrupted. A stranger, maybe five years older than Matt, approached their table. He wore his gun belt slung low and his steely eyes never waivered from Matt.

"Your name Dillon, Matt Dillon from San Antone? "

"I lived there. Why do you ask?"

"You recollect gunnin' a fella by the name of Wade Johnston there, claimin' he resisted arrest? I see you do from your face. I'm his brother Mal and everyone who knows us Johnstons agrees I'm faster than Wade even though he was a couple years younger. I'll be waitn' fer yah outside."

"If I shot your brother, it was only because he forced me into it. If he'd come peacable, he'd be back out to causing trouble by now."

"So you say. I saw it different then and I still do now that I've caught up with yah. Like I said, I'll be waitin'"

An hour later the two friends left the Long Branch, Chester for his bed at the jailhouse so that Marshal Stryker could go home to his wife and daughter and Matt to do the late rounds a bit early before he also turned in for the night. Matt had turned one way, and Chester the other when a voice rang out from the middle of the street and behind him.

"I told yah, I'd be waitin'. Now draw unless you're too scared."

Matt spun around as he heard the unmistakable cocking of the hammer of a Colt Peacemaker, drawing his own Colt as he did so, aiming and firing. His bullet hit its mark, killing Mal Johnston just as Johnston pulled the trigger. The gunman's shot grazed Matt's shirt before falling harmlessly in the dirt. Doc was kneeling by the body as Matt stood there trying to get past the senselessness of it all. Only after he heard Doc call for the body to be taken away did he realize Lee was beside him.

"Where's your gambler friend?"

"That's right, Matt. Tim Jackson's my friend. I got to know him while you were gone so long. A girl's got to be seen in her town or else her business might suffer. I came outside when that man called you out."

"Does that mean you care what happens to me?"

"Yeah, I do. What girl in her right mind wouldn't want to see if the man who seems to want to marry her was gonna live or die. I'm glad you lived. Your dying isn't the kind of excitement I want."

Matt walked Lee home. He wanted things settled between them, but one thing led to another and the couple wound up entwined. Talk was forgotten. Besides, the physical encounter might just be his answer. They did agree to ride out toward the homestead he wanted to claim for their ranch with a picnic lunch as soon as he made his report to Stryker and Washington about the gunfight and the capture of the bank robbers. Stryker usually didn't mind if he took time off during mid-day, at least if the reason was to court his girl.

By ten Matt was ready to ride out with Lee. He stowed the picnic basket under the seat of the buggy he'd rented from Moss. Then he parked it in the alley by the stage depot while he went inside to fetch Lee. She was dressed for a ride in the country and was giving the clerk last minute instructions when Matt walked in.

Matt drove the buggy at a leisurely pace during the 20-mile journey to the place by Crooked Creek he would claim if Lee agreed. It was nearly one by the time the cabin and barn were in sight. Both of them were famished so Lee carried the picnic basket into the house while Matt saw to the horse in the barn. The would-be rancher discovered some oats remained in the feed bin along with the hay. In the house, his confused date found a table remained in the kitchen and a couple of chairs had been left in the main room. She laid out their meal.

Their meal over, Matt took his girl on a guided tour of what he hoped would be their home. There wasn't much more to see in the house, just the bedroom. It even had a bed they could throw a clean blanket over, which he'd remembered to bring, if they decided to celebrate before returning home to Dodge. Following the house tour he took her arm to lead her outside and up a small hill where they could survey the entire spread.

"I get the feeling you're trying to sell me on living here after we marry. I don't want any part of it."

"I'm sorry Lee. I thought you'd like it. We can find another ranch."

"I don't want any ranch or farm. I moved to Dodge City not only to be with you, but to get away from my dull life in the country."

"Are you saying you don't want to get married?"

"No. I'm saying I don't want to live so far from town. Fact is, I don't want to live outside the town limits."

"I don't know what I'd do to earn a living if we stayed in town."

"What do you mean? You already have a job in town."

"I can't be a lawman and raise a family. It's far too chancy."

"Well, I won't marry you if you insist on being a rancher or any job if it meant you gave up your gun."

"I reckon we're through 'cause I won't keep the badge if I'm to marry. You saw what happened last night. I've already got a reputation. At least it's early enough that it can be forgotten, especially if I do nothing to help it grow like keep having to use my gun."

Lee nodded before she turned her back and walked back to the house to gather up what they'd left behind there. Matt, for his part, turned dejectedly back to the barn to hitch the horse to the buggy. The return trip took little more than an hour during which they ignored each other. He halted in front of the stage office to drop her off before returning the rig to Moss. Nothing remained but to head to the office to let Josh know he was back.

Over the next couple of weeks the couple didn't exactly avoid meeting, but neither of them went out of the way to ensure they were together. When they did meet nothing of substance was discussed. Matt felt his life was in limbo until two weeks after the disastrous picnic at what he'd hoped would be the home where they raised their family. He glanced through the window of the stage depot as he walked by. Lee wasn't inside so he decided to walk down Front Street to the Long Branch. Less than a block further on he met Lee and Jackson strolling arm in arm toward him while talking animatedly yet softly to each other.

"Hi, Matt. I didn't want to tell you on the street, but at least you won't be surprised once it becomes general knowledge. I've quit my job. My replacement will take over on Monday. Tim & I are getting married Saturday. I leave it up to you whether you want to attend or not."

Matt didn't bother to respond. Instead he continued his interrupted journey to the Long Branch feeling disdainful toward all gamblers as represented by Jackson and devastated by Lee's betrayal. He would dedicate his life to the badge, however long that life proved to be, and follow Adam Kimbro's advice by staying away from relationships as long as he wore the badge. When it came to women, he'd get his sexual release but steer clear of any of them who might in any remote way mean something more.

As he was ordering his drink, a new girl, Lucy Parker, asked him to buy her a drink. Matt obliged.


	15. Chapter 15 Changes

This chapter contains direct reference to people mentioned in Season 6, The Blacksmith and Season 8, The Ditch, but mostly this chapter involves events mentioned in Season 15's Stryker.

**Chapter 15 – Changes**

February became March. The railroad depot wasn't anywhere near completion. It would be a long time, maybe years before Dodge City would be a transfer point for passengers heading further west. Whether travel was further to the west or back toward the east the choices were horseback, wagon or stagecoach. However, the stockyards were ready to take on more cattle than last season and the town had hopes of surpassing Abilene and Wichita as destinations once rail service was less erratic. Leona, Jackson since her marriage the second Saturday in February, was long gone. Matt Dillon couldn't say it didn't still hurt, but he'd pushed the fiasco that his marriage proposal to her had been to the back of his mind. He was fully married to the badge now. There was no room, except the occasional release of tension, for anything else. However, therein lay the problem.

Ever since Lee Drummond's marriage to that gambler Matt became more reluctant to share anything to do with himself, especially emotions. Doc Adams tried to draw him out but if it was possible the already taciturn young man who had shared as much of his feelings as he dared with the one man in Dodge City who'd seen him at his weakest, refused to unburden himself. He joked around with the doctor and Chester Goode, the jailer who was a year younger, but despite the ever-increasing closeness among the three friends the tall young lawman wouldn't allow his emotions to surface except in sudden bursts of anger. His nominal boss, City Marshal Josh Stryker, had become suspicious of the man he thought of as his deputy's motives because of the way he tackled the job.

The young man no longer checked with Stryker about the tasks he took on. He simply did them. True, in the nearly five months they'd worked together Dillon had become familiar with the routine, but that didn't mean there weren't times when the Marshal of Dodge didn't want his deputy to do something else. While before Leona Drummond, Lee to her friends, had dumped the smitten assistant for a quick wedding to that gambler and run off with him, the lad was much easier to get along with and, truth to tell, more apt to follow the City Marshal's lead. He'd even ask permission to head out of town for personal reasons, but no more.

It being the first of the month, for a time Stryker thought his missing deputy was playing an April Fool's joke on him. That notion proved to be false when he cornered his stiff-legged lanky young man whom he paid out of his own salary to run errands, rev up the place and feed and keep track of the prisoners, as befit a jailer, Chester Goode, also didn't know his assistant's whereabouts. He knew the irascible town doctor and the awkward young man who slept on the cot in the office because he couldn't afford to pay for a room on his meager salary were Dillon's closest friends. The doctor had been out on calls, but he knew nothing as well or wasn't saying what he knew despite being one of the town leaders who had brought Matt Dillon to Dodge City from San Antonio where he wasn't the only deputy.

"I ought to fire you," Stryker greeted his prodigal deputy when the tall young man strode into the office five days later. "What gave you the idea you could disappear? It so happens two men died in the Texas Trail while I was out in the countryside serving papers. More harm could have been done in your absence if Chester hadn't managed to diffuse a ruckus at the Oasis by shear luck. Where were you?"

"Getting three large cattle drives to come up here from the Panhandle. I had to talk to the Bar H trail boss anyway so while I was at it, I thought I'd help us build up our cattle trade. I sure don't need any stock now that Lee's not around. Doc knew."

"I reckon the businessmen won't let me fire you now. How many head are they bringing in?"

"A couple a thousand. The first herd will arrive in early May."

That bit of information made it hard for Marshal Stryker to continue to dress down the young man he believed was his subordinate. Instead, he shoved him out of the office with instructions to stop by again after he'd had a bath, a shave, a change of clothes and something to eat. Matt did as he was told, but barely listened to what the older man had to tell him upon his return. Instead of going immediately to the blacksmith to learn the story behind the complaint that he hadn't been paid by Susan Bart for the shoeing of her best horse, he went to a back room at the Dodge House to meet with the civic leaders. They were pleased with his accomplishment of bringing new business to town with a promise of even more in the future.

The town leaders may have been pleased, but Matt wasn't. Now that, in his current state of mind, the badge and the law it backed had become the core of his being, he wanted to be able to exercise his full authority. At the same time, he didn't want to hurt Josh Stryker, a good man, whom he considered a friend as well as a darn good lawman. Doc noticed his fleeting change of expression. Matt willingly accompanied the physician to his office, but wouldn't let on what was bothering him. The emotions were too raw. He didn't want any fatherly advice so he made his excuses and finally went to see Emil Wohlheimer, the blacksmith. He needn't have bothered. Susan's father had already apologized for his daughter's behavior and paid the man.

During the weeks that followed Matt continued to develop his own routine about keeping the peace in Dodge, which as it happened wasn't, for the most part, contrary to what Josh would have told him to do. When things were quiet and he was particularly feeling the need, he'd locate Lucy and, after a rye whiskey or two, escort her to her room for the physical release. He found her attractive enough, but made it clear each time she tried to make it into something more that he wasn't interested. Still, he kept seeing her even after it was obvious that Ephram Hunt was seriously courting her and she didn't mind it. Fact is, she enjoyed the sexual release as much as he did.

One April night changed all that. While making the late rounds Matt caught Collie Remick trying to start a fire at the feed and grain. The burly man in his mid-forties was easily offended and tended to hold grudges and so had few friends. He also, according to the Ted Caruthers, the barkeep at the Texas Trail, who grew up in the same Texas town as Remick, was fascinated with fire as a boy. It was no wonder he was the first person at every fire that broke out. That was why the town council named him to head the volunteer fire fighters, but also why they should have picked someone else. As he escorted him to the jail, Matt wondered if this was the first time he'd committed arson.

Remick went along peaceably enough, allowing himself to be locked in a cell without putting up a fight. However, he didn't appreciate the news Marshal Stryker gave him about being escorted to Hays for trial in the morning. Even so all he did was grumble while they rode out and then become seemingly resigned to the trip. It was late afternoon, when they stopped to water the horses, when he succeeded in turning the tables on the two lawmen escorting him. Stryker had removed the cuffs on Remick's wrists believing the man had accepted the fact he was to stand trial for arson and turned his back to water his own horse and refill his canteen. Remick took that moment to mount his horse and gallop off across the prairie toward the southwest.

Matt, who'd just finished filling his own canteen, jumped on his horse yelling over his shoulder as he urged his mount into a full gallop after the escaping prisoner, "Josh, I'll get him. Follow as soon as you can."

Remick had too much of a head start. Matt slowed his mount, turned and headed back toward where he left Stryker. The older man joined him before he'd traveled a quarter mile at the slower pace.

"I believe I know where he's headed, but if you think you can track him, hotshot, do it. I'll ride along to keep you out of trouble."

Matt followed the trail Remick left. By nightfall they'd reached the Wilson place, ten miles outside of Dodge to find the house was ablaze. Matt looked around for the escaped prisoner they'd been chasing all afternoon after spotting the man's horse tied to the corral fence. He spotted him standing behind the blazing house seemingly admiring his work. Meanwhile, Stryker ran toward the building with a bucket of water and peeked in the kitchen window as he threw the liquid on the house. Jake and Ellie Wilson and their two kids were inside sitting in chairs as if sitting down to supper. The trouble was the table and all four Wilsons were ablaze.

Stryker raced past Matt, who'd been quietly approaching Remick, his Colt drawn. He fired repeatedly at the unarmed man without calling out to him. The young lawman circled around to avoid the hail of his nominal boss' bullets to reach the fallen prisoner. The man was dead. Ignoring Stryker, Matt got as close to the house as he could, but the heat was too intense. If anybody was inside, they were dead. Instead he walked quickly to the barn for a shovel to bury the prisoner they'd been taking to Hays for trial.

Matt didn't bother to watch or help Stryker in his useless task of trying to douse the flames. Instead, as soon as Remick's shallow grave was covered over, he lit out for home to send a couple of wires and write his report. An angry City Marshal returned that evening, April 10, 1866, to find Matt sitting at the marshal's desk waiting for him and wearing his US Marshal's badge.

"I'm sorry Josh, put I have to arrest you for murder. I've already wired Hays and the circuit judge."

Five days later the murder trial of Josh Stryker was over. Matt testified to what he saw the man do at the Wilson ranch. Based on that testimony Stryker was convicted of killing an unarmed man and sentenced to 15 years instead of death because the man was an escaped prisoner and the emotional turmoil caused by seeing his closest friend and his family burning to death after the jury convicted him. The judge believed Matt when he said that Stryker had completely lost it for a few moments.

Matt didn't escort Stryker to prison. Instead he arranged for the man to be picked up by the Kansas State Prison authorities. He wanted to give the erstwhile lawman's wife and daughter the maximum time before they were separated for those long years and to try to get Josh to understand that Matt was only doing his sworn duty. It certainly wasn't the way he wanted the older man to learn he was the US Marshal for Kansas headquartered in Dodge City.

"The town hiring you as deputy was the first step in my being officially named U.S. Marshal, but you were after my badge. You lied on the stand so you could be both City and U.S. Marshal. Well, you're still just my deputy," Josh Stryker yelled for the entire town to hear as they loaded him into the prison wagon.

Matt watched, sad the man he still considered his friend was unable to accept the truth. The town council had told Stryker the truth even before Matt after being sworn in at the trial gave his occupation and residence as U.S. and City Marshal, Dodge City, Kansas.


	16. Chapter 16 Now That I'm Marshal

I apologize to those of you who might spot discrepancies between this chapter and chapter 7 of A New Orleans Problem. Please chalk this up to faulty memory. What's here is set when things actually happened instead of years later with Matt and Kitty reminiscing. For instance, we know Matt was named marshal while Josh Stryker was still City Marshal. He openly claimed the job a month later than stated in A New Orleans Problem. Bedino's Café is from Season 1's The Pest Hole. It was here that Matt first laid eyes on Kitty rather than Delmonico's as stated in that earlier written story. She didn't name Delmonico's in Season 17's The Bullet Part 2. Instead she referred to "that café."

**Chapter 16 – Now That I'm Marshal**

Matt Dillon, now wearing his US Marshal's badge over his heart, turned back toward the office, his office, as soon as the prison wagon pulled away. It bothered him that Josh Stryker considered him a traitor but he had a job to do; one that he could finally do openly and his way. Stryker broke the law and his testimony sent the man to prison. Someday the older man might come to understand that the law was the only reason Matt acted as he did. It was the only way he could honor his oath. Doc understood. The town's physician felt the same way about his own Hippocratic oath. The young marshal took no pleasure in testifying against the man who thought of him as his deputy rather than the man brought in as his superior.

Chester Goode, who'd already gotten into the routine, handed his boss a cup of coffee. Matt had asked Chester to be his full-time assistant, not just the jailer, even though he'd be paying him out of his own pocket. The town decided to put most of the money they'd been paying Stryker toward the upkeep of the man's wife and daughter and he couldn't argue with that. They would pay this until the girl came of age, but her mother would still have to pay taxes on the house just as if her husband weren't in prison. The leaders told him due to the strain on the city coffers by now paying him a small stipend of $10 a month over what the government in Washington was paying him there was nothing left to pay wages to a jailer, but they could squeeze in the cost of his room rent.

The young lawman didn't take the time to dwell on his pay. Money had never been that important to him and, unlike Chester, he wasn't inclined to gamble it away and not just because he was a better poker player than his friend. Therefore he didn't mind sharing a small portion of his salary with the young man with the game leg he'd come to trust like a brother. Even before Stryker's departure, they'd developed a routine. For example, Matt would put his feet up on his desk while he thumbed through wanted posters while Chester went to fetch the mail. Still, he thought about how his approach would differ from the former City Marshal as well as what the man had done right.

Now that his prisoner was gone and it was still early enough in the year that the hoped for herds and the accompanying drovers had yet to arrive, Matt decided it was time he introduced himself to the folks in Ford County he didn't already know. Although his territory included all of Kansas, most of his work would be in the western part of the state west to the Colorado border, south into the Nations to the Texas border, north to the Nebraska border and east as far as Wichita and Abilene. Even those two towns were established enough to have their own law enforcement, as did all of eastern Kansas. Stryker, being simply the City Marshal, although he fancied himself as marshal for the whole area, and due to his having a family, had never bothered to familiarize himself with the outlying ranches, homesteads, towns and canyons where trouble for Dodge City brewed.

Josh Stryker had been an effective marshal when it came to keeping a lid on most of the law breaking within the unincorporated town's unofficial limits and forming posses to chase after escaping robbers, killers and such. However, too many of those robberies and killings could have been prevented if he'd ventured outside the town boundaries more often, even if it was technically outside his jurisdiction. Matt realized that until the town was incorporated as Ford County's county seat, any elected county sheriff would have little power or even recognition. Incorporation would come with completion of the railroad depot on the eastern edge of town for passenger service, which was still at least a year off. The town leaders realized that, which is why they wanted a US Marshal in their town at the city jail. Matt Dillon could now openly provide that legal power of enforcement.

Soon, the two young men had their hands full as first the buffalo hunters and trappers made their way into town, followed closely by the drifters trying to catch a bit of temporary work, the gamblers and the gunmen and those, the ones Matt referred to as spoilers, who were simply up to no good. By the time the first herds arrived, with the town already bulging with folks with ready cash or willing to have that cash lavished on them, the young marshal's first real challenge had to be faced.

"Stryker had problems handling the fights & killings and property damage when the Texans got here and you've managed to set us up for an even larger cattle season, which we appreciate. He did his best, but couldn't keep up with it. How do you hope to handle it?" Delmonico's owner Mr. Green, acting as spokesman for the group of businessmen who swarmed into his office, the newly formed Chamber of Commerce, asked.

"I plan to stop as much trouble as I can before it starts. I'm sure you've seen the signs enforcing the new ordinances the town council barely passed about firing guns in town and no horses on the boardwalk or in the saloons. Those will be strictly enforced."

"Just what do you mean by strictly, Marshal?" the Dodge House owner, Mr. Dolby queried. "We can't have you coming down so hard on the cowboys that they don't want to come back even if you did convince them to increase their business here while only the stockyards are complete. The tracks end here, but there's no station in place. Stryker couldn't find that balance. He couldn't be everywhere at once or chase all the troublemakers out of town so the rest could remain and spend their money."

"I'll do my rounds with Chester and learn who the leaders are. Throwing them in jail overnight or out of town, but not before I collect any assessed damages, will get the others to think twice about violating the law. Anyone firing a gun within the town limits can pick the weapon up at my office when they leave town. If I have to break up a fight or prevent destruction of property, the man responsible can sleep it off in jail."

"That was Stryker's plan. He couldn't prevent the gunplay or brawls in one saloon while he was in another. The shootings and stabbings continued," Mr. Bodkin, the banker added. "Respectable folks weren't always spared from being hit by stray bullets or with damage to their property."

"Every outfit has a trail boss. I'll lay out the rules to him before they hit town & jail him if his outfit seems to cause the most trouble. As to any men who cause trouble, the butt of my gun on the side of a head serves to stop gunplay or a knifing short of a killing. I can't as you pointed out stop everything & still make them feel welcome to let off steam after not seeing a town or women for months, but I can make sure they know the law will be applied fairly and won't go away."

Marshal Matt Dillon followed through on the policy he laid out to the town leaders. He rode out on the prairie and welcomed each drive and then spelled out the rules to the trail boss. Violence and drunk and disorderly behavior didn't disappear, but there was a softening around the edges. For the most part, the residential areas where the respectable citizens lived were kept free of the riffraff, while Front Street and the slums to the south of the Santa Fe tracks remained wide open with only the most unruly perpetrators along the town's main business thoroughfares being arrested. Fights were broken up, men were rendered unable to continue with their destructive intensions by a blow to the head or, as rarely as possible, by Matt resorting to firing his pistol or rifle or Chester his shotgun. Other than that, the men were free to raucously drink, gamble and whore.

The young lawman's reputation grew as the men coming to Dodge City from Texas and elsewhere talked about his exploits, especially how fast he was with the Colt he wore on his hip. Neither Matt nor the men who hired him expected he would live long. Yet somehow Matt Dillon survived and the Texans weren't completely turned off by his strategy. They planned to tell others to come to Dodge City to either sell their beef locally or sell it for shipment east for a good price after a shorter route than the Chisholm Trail.

While the town was overflowing Matt had little time for recreational pursuits. When he could grab a drink, he kept to beer, skipping the rye in case of unforeseen trouble. He even managed to get in a meal at least once a day and a quick one with one of the girls, such as Lucy, as well as at least an hour's sleep here and there. However, by the time the population started to thin down to its core, she had accepted Ephram Hunt's proposal and would only be working at the Long Branch a few more months. Now that things were quieter, he even felt comfortable sending his assistant Chester Goode to Meade with some papers from the land office in Wichita for the man who'd claimed the homestead Matt had thought would become his ranch before Lee turned him down and the badge took over his life.

With Chester out of town, the young marshal rode out early to a nester family that was having a problem with their small rancher neighbor over cattle stomping on their crops just as it was ready for harvest. He managed to find a compromise acceptable to both before returning to town in the rain that first day of November. However, it meant he was late getting to breakfast. As he entered Bedino's Café he spotted a striking redhead out of the corner of his eye he'd never seen before. Somehow there was something about her that drew his eye and he didn't think it was just because she was beautiful despite the effects of the rain.

Kitty Russell had also noticed the handsome young man who'd walked by her to sit down at a table in the back where he tore into the biggest breakfast she'd every seen. Then again, he was the biggest man she'd ever seen. On impulse she decided to stay in the ugly town and accept the job offer she had from Bill Pence if they could reach an agreement. She paid her bill, told the stage driver she wouldn't be continuing on and asked him to point out the Long Branch Saloon and a respectable place to stay.

Doc Adams eyed the beautiful redhead from his vantage point at the bottom of his stairs in the alleyway beside the general store before stepping across Front Street to where he knew Matt Dillon was eating a late breakfast. He felt certain the man would be happy to have company rather than eat his entire meal alone. He was right.

"Matt, did you happen to notice that stunning redhead who just left here?" the physician asked as he took a seat and beckoned Bedino over. "Could you bring me some coffee?"

"What redhead was that? If it was the one who I saw eating her breakfast, she's much too young for you."

"Pshaw. If you don't go after her soon, I just might beat you to it. You need to get past Lee and start looking for a new girl."

"I'm over Lee. I don't lack for girls even if Lucy is getting married soon. The job doesn't leave room for anything more."

Despite what he'd told Doc, Matt couldn't stop thinking about the redhead. No matter how hard he tried to put her out of his mind, he couldn't. He had a feeling she was special in a way he'd never before encountered. It didn't help that Doc mentioned her again during supper. Of course, Chester being curious, had to know all about this new girl in town. Doc was more than happy to oblige in this instance. His two friends were still talking about her when the three of them walked through the batwing doors into the Long Branch. There she was, full of poise that belied her years. Though barely more than a girl, Matt could see by the way she confidently handled herself with the men that he was watching a lady.

He made the Long Branch his final stop on his late rounds, sending Chester, who'd returned that afternoon, to bed on his cot at the empty jailhouse. The girl, by age if not by attitude, was gathering up the house winnings from the table where she'd obviously been dealing poker. He sauntered over to introduce himself. She soon put him at his ease. He found himself telling this Kitty Russell things about himself he'd never shared with anyone, not even Doc and surely not Chester. She was the easiest person to talk to and it couldn't be because they were both orphans thrown on their own devices at a young age. He was thinking of proposing before he revealed that fact about himself to Lee, yet he'd already told Kitty after only a few minutes. Matt walked her home to Ma Smalley's where it turned out they both lived, seeing her inside before he walked back out and around to his room in the back.

After that first night he and Kitty grew closer. She was even more of a best friend than Frank Reardon and only partially because she was here in Dodge while Frank was sheriff in Hondo, Texas until he grew restless and moved on to somewhere else. There was something else as well about this young lady – a pull despite every effort to ignore it toward her as a woman. He finally gave in and asked her to go fishing with him. She loved the idea. He began to ask her to supper alone including for her 20th birthday on February 20, 1867. By the time his 26th birthday came around on May 26th she was his girl much to Chester's disappointment. He had hopes, but knew he had no chance, not with his boss in the running and so settled for friendship. Doc also grew extremely fond of her. Although he'd joke with her about marriage, he came to love her as a daughter.

Matt and Kitty became lovers. They progressed from walking out together to a physical relationship after he asked her to a charity ball and she accepted despite reservations. She was right about how the town's proper ladies would react, but their private dance proved much more agreeable to them both even if he did step on her toes. At least nobody else was there to see how clumsy a dancer he was. Besides, the sore feet along with the hurtful actions of the town harpies were easily forgotten due to the reward of sharing a bed with the most gentle of lovers that followed.

Matt reflected on his time in Dodge City. He'd found a purpose to his life, three close friends who would trade their lives for him and he for theirs, and one of them the woman whom in his heart he knew he was meant to be with. Still he had reservations and not just about the danger he'd be putting her in. She was much too good for him. What other woman could accept he could never marry as long as he wore the badge – a badge he'd wear as long as he was able to carry out his oath? Accept it she did along with keeping the full extent of how they felt about each other secret. Since Doc and Chester would escort her to the many social events his job prevented him from attending, he could tell himself that despite the sexual side of their relationship and how his heart skipped a beat every time he looked at her, they were merely very special good friends. He couldn't be happier making the Long Branch his final stop when he made his late rounds or upon seeing her face when he returned from a trip.


End file.
